Once Forgotten
by Luppi-tan
Summary: Brief TrainxKyoko, Mostly TrainxEve. Train is now a bestselling author, except he's not Train. What happens when he begins to get his old life... and his old friends... back?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I know that I am beginning the chapter, calling the main character by a different name. Please bear with me for a while, as I am merely building up the story that so strangely popped into my head during my week at Boy Scout camp

Chapter One

"So…" began an enthusiastic and somewhat overly imposing man in a designer gray suit with a taupe tie, a wide smile, and a terrible toupee. "Gary Sennex, the name that's on everyone's tongue these days. Let's give him a hand, folks!" the man said loudly, calling the large crowd at the recording studio to action, eliciting loud applause and whistling for the man who was being interviewed, apparently, a Mr. Gary Sennex.

For forty-five seconds or so, the crowd cheered enthusiastically, forcing Gary even to stand up and wave at them, forcing a smile, which he honestly did not wish to be wearing. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his fan base. It was more that he was somewhat preoccupied. He remembered mere hours earlier, his girlfriend, who was just as enthusiastic and energetic as the crowd, and often, twice as loud, was pushing him to hurry up and get ready.

"_Hurry up, Tr… er… Gary!! We're going to be late!!"_

"_I hate wearing ties! You know that, Kyoko-chan!" Gary replied irately, pulling away from her slightly. She was about to call him something else again. It seemed to happen from time to time that she nearly slipped and called him a different name. He was suspicious, but he didn't want to push her. He couldn't let her go. She was the one who brought him back to relatively good health after he woke up that day in an alley with no idea of who he was, or where he was, or for that matter, how he had ended up there with a gaudy looking gun strapped to his thigh and a picture of himself and two other people in his wallet, a stunningly beautiful blonde girl with crimson red eyes wearing spectacles that only served to make her look even more beautiful, and a man in a hat with green hair and a scruffy beard and a tacky suit and tie. Strangely, he didn't have any forms of identification. He figured that they must have been stolen, though, by whoever had beaten him so badly. After all, he must have been in a fight of some kind. His entire body was sore, and he found that all of his money was gone and he was bleeding from a wound on his head that was leaking down into his eyes and blinding him._

_That was when a woman who appeared to be Japanese passed by and looked at him. She then called him a strange name that she hadn't called him again since. Gary had still been kind of woozy at the moment, so he didn't quite remember what that name was, but she helped him off of the sidewalk and brought him back to her own apartment. When asked if she had been busy, she had told him that she was on her way to college, but that she could make up the work another day. She was striking as well, and bore an uncanny resemblance to someone that he was sure that he had known at one point in time. Two people that he had once known, actually, and he got the feeling that he may have had romantic feelings for one of them, though he couldn't quite remember which one, nor could he remember their specific faces or names._

_The girl said that her name was Kyoko Kirisaki, and that she knew him from a long time ago. She let him take a bath and washed his clothes for him. She seemed a bit eccentric at the time, but not altogether too odd for a college girl. He had no idea what his own age, name, occupation, or even place of birth was. For some reason, it was all a blur to him. The girl, Kyoko had told him that he could stay as long as he wanted. He tried to refuse, but she said that she had a couch that he could sleep on. At least she was acting appropriately._

_It was sometime, about half a year, maybe, that he started having strange dreams about a man who looked exactly like him in every way, except that his name was Train Heartnet, and he was known and feared by the alias "Black Cat". Apparently, this Train fellow had been a member of an organization of assassins called Chronos. Then he met a girl named Saya Minatsuki, and she prompted him to leave Chronos and become a sweeper like she had been. He joined a man named Sven Vollfied, who was the man in the photograph. At one point, they picked up a girl named Eve, who was the girl in the photograph, just at a younger age at the time. And the three of them were sweepers together, and ultimately fought and beat a criminal organization of Tao users called the Apostles of the Stars._

But the whole story of how he got there was neither here nor there at the moment, and merely idle interest. What was important was that he was on stage with a talk show host, and was being interviewed about his latest book, which was to be a series named Black Cat. The novel had drawn a great deal of attention, and had won worldwide acclaim as a bestseller. He used all of the information that he was gaining from his dreams to fuel his series, but the dreams were steadily becoming more and more lifelike, and he was having more intricate dreams that delved deep into Train Heartnet's disturbing and somewhat frightening past, causing the dreams to become more like nightmares, themselves. They always started with some form of conflict between Train and the main antagonist, Creed Diskenth, both of whom once worked for Chronos. Creed was mentally unbalanced, though, and ended up murdering Train's one friend, the one with whom he fell in love. After that, he swore revenge on Creed and left Chronos to work as a sweeper.

"So, Gary, what inspired you to write such an amazing novel, and to promise more such novels to come?" the host asked, leaning forward as if begging for information.

"Well, I suppose that people are expecting me to say something like 'it just popped into my head one day.' That's not really the case, though. I guess it started about a year and a half ago when I started having some really odd dreams about the main character, and for some reason, these dreams kept occurring, so I started to write them down, wondering if maybe they'd help me later on. Then Kyoko told me that I should make a book out of it. Since I didn't feel like arguing at the moment…" Gary was interrupted by some laughter, mostly from the male audience members. "I wrote it up into novel format, and she sent it in to someone who decided it was good enough to publish."

"Well, that's pretty impressive…"

The rest of the talk show sort of blurred into the background, with Gary giving only minimal attention to the audience and the host. He couldn't say that he was disappointed when it was over, either, so he quickly changed into more comfortable clothes. He remembered once again how much he hated wearing ties and such fancy clothes. He had talked a great deal to Kyoko, as do most people who are going out, and he had learned that Japanese males wear uniforms with ties every day to school. He couldn't figure out how they did it. It seemed strange that anyone would force other people to wear uniforms. However, he couldn't be bothered thinking too much on the subject at the moment, so he sighed and changed, looking in the mirror and combing through his hair once more. He didn't know why he bothered trying to tame his hair. It had always been extremely messy, no matter what he did with it. He tried every remedy known to man, and none of it had worked. He had long since begun to suspect, in fact, that short of shaving his head, nothing would work on his hair.

With that, he put his comb back in his pocket, and walked slowly out of the dressing room. Looking to the left and to the right, having forgotten which way to go, he experimentally took a left turn. The halls in the studio, like in every other studio that he had ever been in, were extremely clogged with filming gear and cast members along with directors, and extras that all seemed to be talking at once. Gary didn't like all of the noise in the studio. He preferred it when it was only him and Kyoko. Despite what he was thinking about earlier, he did love Kyoko, and it wasn't merely that he was using her to get more information on his own past, although he couldn't deny that it was useful that she seemed to know more than he did about him. He just wished that she would be more honest with him. He didn't know a thing about himself beyond what he had figured out on his own, but he knew that somehow, he was incredibly, and almost inhumanly fast, could jump ridiculously high, was amazing in almost every sport known to man, including sharpshooting, but excluding strategy games like Chess, Shogi, and Go, and that he was strangely skilled at martial arts, despite the fact that he had just begun taking classes a few months ago. He had a feeling that all of this somehow tied into his past. However, he couldn't be sure, so he never brought it up.

Walking past some lights that the filming crew was testing, he found an exit sign on the left. Suddenly, the lights went on, blinding him and causing bright, sparkling lights to appear in front of his eyes. He sighed and shook his head, clearing away the sudden disorientation that always seemed to grip the brain when one had such a bright light so suddenly shone in one's face. Walking through the door, though, he found that it was not the exit that he was looking for. Instead, it was a misleadingly marked entrance onto a dark stage that still had the cameras all over it and the props from the latest show that had been aired there. Gary groaned and walked back out, running instantly into a director, who scowled at him and started instantly shouting.

"Hey! Who are you!? You don't belong out… Wait a minute! You're Gary Sennex! You were on the Danuve Show today. What are you doing all the way in the east wing of the studio? This is where they run sitcoms and comedy shows. Weren't you on stage 5B North?" the director asked, shaking Gary's hand jovially. Garry nodded, confused slightly by what the director was saying. 5B North, East wing, none of it made any sense to him.

"I'm just looking for the front parking lot…" Gary said exasperatedly, sighing and shaking his head.

The director nodded enthusiastically, much as the talk show host, Michael Danuve had been, and gave him very simple instructions on how to get from the East Wing to the North Parking Lot. He needed to make two rights, and then a left, walk through a double door on the left and then turn right a third time and then pass six doors on either side of him. In front of him, there would be a double door with an exit sign above it, and that would be the exit.

As he made it to the exit, he once again began to think about what had transpired between him and Kyoko that morning, and what she may or may not have been about to call him. He wanted to know, and had decided that no matter what, he was going to find out. It was high time that Kyoko started telling him the truth, especially since it seemed to be about his own life. He had a strong suspicion that the characters in his dreams and in his books were much more than just fanciful dreams. He knew vaguely of an organization called Chronos, and that they did indeed have many skilled assassins among their numbers. What further lent credence to Gary's former association with Chronos was the roman numeral thirteen tattooed on his chest. Kyoko said that it looked cool and manly, but Gary had the feeling that it was more than just a fashion statement. He got the feeling that it served the purpose of marking him forever as a killer for Chronos. Of course, all of this, even if it was true, was incredibly frightening, and unbelievable. After all, despite the fact that he could easily jump clear over a six foot tall man's head, he was but a humble author, albeit an extremely athletic one.

Walking out the door into the crisp autumn air, he looked around and saw the beautiful foliage falling all around him. He got the feeling that he had never really stopped before to look at the fall leaves. All of the oranges, reds, and yellows mixed together to form what seemed a perfect natural oil painting. He didn't have long to reflect upon this, though, as his attention was soon taken by Kyoko, who grabbed his hand and kissed him on the lips, smiling brightly at him. She looked really cute in her fall jacket and plaid skirt… Gary shook his head. If he really was going to try to find his old self, he was going to have to stop thinking like a perverted old man watching high school girls in their uniforms. Unfortunately, Gary and Kyoko weren't going to be left alone to leave the studio in peace. Suddenly, a voice rang out through the parking lot and then hundreds of fans came rushing over to ask Gary to autograph their book.

Gary sighed. This was one of the downsides of being famous, the screaming mobs that seemed to follow everywhere he went. In one respect, he was good for any store or business that he went into, as dozens if not more people generally followed in his wake. For example, the MMA studio that he had joined recently almost doubled in membership after he did due to people who wanted to meet him. Sometimes, though, he wished that he could just lead a normal life. He looked around. The mob wasn't too large that day, so, he swept Kyoko off her feet and carried her bridal style, jumping up onto the railing and jumping high into the air over all of the fans, and landing gracefully behind all of them and instantly breaking into a run faster than any of the fans could even turn around. That way, before they could follow him, Gary and Kyoko would be in their car safely, driving off.

The two drove away and out of the parking lot, sighing in relief. Gary hated crowds, and Kyoko wasn't too fond of being rushed by people either. They drove down the street toward their hotel. It wasn't that far away. In fact, the show that they had gone on had paid for their hotel room for the time that they would be in town. Their hotel was pretty basic, just a Holiday Inn, just the way that Gary liked it. Kyoko would have been glad to stay at a fancier place, but Gary preferred simplicity over swank.

When they got back to the hotel, Gary noticed a car that looked ironically familiar to one he was sure that he had seen before. It was a beat up old white station wagon with chipped mirrors and cracked windows, but it looked to be ultimately in good condition, considering that it had probably been made over twenty years before. The two walked into the hotel and started to go past the front desk when they were stopped by the receptionist, who told them that they had some visitors waiting for them in the hotel restaurant. Gary was grateful that the receptionist hadn't given them their room number. Again, although he appreciated his fans, he appreciated even more being given a moment's peace. However, it would have been frightfully rude to keep them waiting, so he walked over to the restaurant, asking if Kyoko would go back up to the room and wait for a little while. She seemed reluctant at first, perhaps a little overly so, but not so much as to make Gary suspicious. After a moment or two, though, she relented, and walked toward the room with their key, grumbling as she went about how bored she was. She, unlike he, enjoyed meeting new people. Of course, neither she nor Gary knew exactly what was about to transpire.

Gary walked into the restaurant and looked around. When he did, he saw a man with a scruffy beard and an age weathered face with green hair, a gray suit, and a tacky tie and hat, despite the fact that he was indoors, and a stunningly beautiful blonde woman of about sixteen or seventeen years with strikingly intelligent crimson eyes and an even more striking deadpan look on her face in a Gothic Lolita style dress with a red ribbon tying her hair back and rimless glasses that slid down her nose slightly, giving her a slightly skewed appearance, like someone else that he was sure that he had once known in passing. It was Sven Vollfied and Eve.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I am going to be switching back and forth between Train's real name, and the name Gary in this chapter. I apologize for any confusion, but will do it anyhow, as it is part of the plot. You will understand eventually.

Chapter Two

Gary knew what this all looked like, but it couldn't be. He had been sure that he had just been imagining the reality of his dreams and that they really were just passing dreams that led him to write a bestseller novel of pure fiction. Surely, these two were just obsessive fans, as surely every fiction author had, dressing up as two of his characters to meet him. Granted, they did look in every way like the Sven Vollfied and Eve from his novels, despite the fact that they both looked rather older now than they did in his dreams. In his dreams, Sven looked maybe thirty, whereas he looked almost forty, now, and in his dreams, Eve couldn't possibly have been any older than thirteen. In the photograph, she couldn't have been any older than fourteen, either.

It was odd to see the two of them, and he couldn't describe it as anything short of miraculous that they had run into each other like this. Now that he looked at their faces, he knew that they weren't fakes. They were the real thing, and so was he. He was Train Heartnet, former eraser for Chronos, former sweeper, and now an author of a bestselling novel. Man, Eve would be laughing at this forever. The Train in Gary's novels was something of an idiot, despite his brilliance with a gun.

Eve looked at Train taciturnly and stood up, continuing to stare him in the eyes. Her deadpan face was almost as disconcerting as it had always been, but something about her now was making Train feel a little bit funny. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but she was affecting him differently, now, than she always had in the past. Suddenly, though, her hand turned into a fist and she punched him hard across the face. Train hadn't been expecting this, and thus, hadn't braced for it. He probably wouldn't have stopped her anyway. He wasn't really sure that he didn't deserve a bit of a beating after he did whatever it was that he did. Suddenly, he heard a crack in his chest, and felt a sharp pain when he inhaled, like something was crushing his chest. He wasn't clear still on how he parted with them, but he knew from looking at them that they had been worried about him. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't even notice Eve on top of him, pummeling him, crying as she did so until he heard Sven pull Eve off of him. He heard Sven talking to Eve trying to calm her down.

"… BUT HE'S SUCH AN ASS!!! HOW COULD HE HAVE DONE THIS TO US!!?? DIDN'T HE KNOW WE WOULD WORRY ABOUT HIM!!??" she screamed, apparently having lost control of her temper.

"Yes… I understand, Eve-chan, but you can't just assault a bestselling novelist in a public place. People are bound to take notice of that!!"

And sure enough, they saw that everyone in the restaurant was looking at them. Slowly, Train got up and gestured for Sven and Eve to follow him back up to his room. Eve had gotten even stronger than she used to be. His whole face was going to be bruised for a while, now, and his ribs hurt where she had been punching him. He was sure that he could feel one or two of them cracked. It hurt like hell to walk, but he couldn't let Eve see him in pain. She had always known him as someone who couldn't be beaten even by the strongest of opponents. How would it look now if she found that she had taken him down with a few punches? After his walk down the hall, though, he could feel his chest hurting after every step and he had to stop to take a breath. It wasn't that he was really out of breath so much as his ribs were more than just cracked. They were beginning to compress his lungs, now. Apparently Eve noticed this, because she ran over to him and looked into his eyes, the worry apparent in hers.

It was clear, now, that she wasn't angry at him, so much as she had been hurt that he had left. He didn't remember anything about his leaving. He didn't remember if he had said goodbye, or if he had just left in the middle of the night. Had they left on good terms? Maybe they had been fighting. He couldn't know, and he had to find out.

"Eve…. *gasp!*" he began. The nanomachine technology in her body was really something, they had been so precise that they had cracked his ribs right in the middle and pressed the sternum down on his lungs, making it difficult for him to breathe. She probably hadn't meant to do that, but nonetheless, he needed a doctor pretty quickly, although the need wasn't dire. It wasn't a life or death situation.

"H-how… Did I… *gasp!* Did I leave you guys!? W-were we… on g-good terms? *Gasp!*" Train began, unable to finish a single sentence without stopping for breath in the middle of it.

"Train!!" Eve said, helping Train stand. "I'm so sorry! Are you alright!?" she said, struggling to hold him up. She wouldn't let Sven help her, though. She wanted to do it herself. She felt really guilty, about hurting Train.

"I'm fine, Little Princess!" he said, standing up, refusing to stop again, even though he desperately needed to catch his breath. Finally, they got to the room, though, and Train took the key card out of his pocket, opening the lock. Opening the door, he walked in, only to see a silver haired man with smallish round sunglasses and a beautiful looking blonde woman next to him.

Train instantly recognized these two and pulled out a small .45 that he had in his pocket for his own and for Kyoko's protection and fired all six rounds at the two of them, The woman merely stared at the bullets, though, and diverted them using her Tao ability of "portal". The bullets entered the portal and then flew out the window from the portal's exit in the back. Panicked slightly at this, Train backed up, pulling Eve and Sven with him. The two of them merely dragged him forward, though, despite the fact that he was resisting heartily.

"Train! Train!! You already got over your fight with Creed, remember!?" Eve called, gently holding Train, stroking his back and calming him down. He wasn't himself at all. The real Train would never have cowered at the sight of Creed, or anyone for that matter. Even a true monster wouldn't have been enough to frighten him. That thought bothered Eve. She wondered vaguely if he had ever been frightened by her. She had been nothing short of a monster. Had her own depredations scared him more than Creed was able to? Whereas Creed was merely misguided in his attempts to become close to Train, Eve only killed because she was ordered to by a man who was even more evil than she had been. She could feel tears stinging the corners of her eyes, just thinking of what Train might have considered her to be when she still worked for Torneo Rudman.

"Train… It's alright, calm down…" Eve whispered. After a moment or two of that, Train stopped trying to escape and looked back at Creed. Though the hatred and fear no longer burned in his eyes, neither did kindness or friendship replace those feelings. It was a sort of empty indifference, a bit like a lack of caring.

Creed looked sadly at Train. He looked like he was about to cry. The woman known in Train's dreams as Echidna put a hand on Creed's shoulder and held him to her. There wasn't much that she could do, though, because he pushed her off of him and walked over to Train, who flinched slightly, but didn't do anything else.

"Train, I understand why you might have misgivings about seeing me again. What I did all those years ago was unforgiveable. I took away from you the one person that you trusted, and for that, I don't deserve to be forgiven. I read your book, though. It was incredible. If I hadn't known that villain to have been me, I would have thought him too evil to be real. I knew that I wouldn't be able to start a new life if I didn't apologize to you for what I had done, so now I'm here to tell you that I truly am sorry…"

After that, Creed's words were lost in his throat. He could no longer think of what to say, and he just decided to stop. Train thought for a minute and then smiled at Creed.

"Well, I don't know if 'forgive' is quite the right word for what I've done, but I have moved on with my life as well, and I'm not really angry at you anymore. I guess that I was just shocked to see you. As you can see, Sven and Eve-chan are here, too, so I've had a real blast from the past, today." Creed nodded at this. For a man who had suffered from amnesia like that, Train was taking all of this surprisingly well. From what Creed had read on people with amnesia, when they were faced with items or people from the past that they had forgotten, they often flew into a rage. Instead, Train had merely tried to shoot Creed and Echidna six times. He had done so despite the fact that Creed could tell that Train knew they wouldn't be hurt by the bullets. Perhaps he had done it more in a reflexive capacity than in a desire to kill Creed and Echidna. If he had really wanted to hurt them, he would have bounced the bullets. Had he really wanted to hurt them, Train of all people would have found a way.

With that, Creed could say no more, so he left with Echidna, smiling at the group as he left. As the door closed, Kyoko looked at Train, who looked back at her, somewhat sternly. This had been what she hadn't been telling him. It was everything. It was that they had known each other at one point in the past before Train lost his memory, that Kyoko had been borderline obsessed with Train, although not as dangerously so as Creed was. She hadn't told him that his dreams were not dreams, but recollections of his past. All of a sudden, he was terribly angry at her. How could she hide all that from him? All the time that he was living with her, she could have been filling him in on what she knew of his past, on how she related to his past. She obviously didn't know everything about his past, nor could she fill him in on what she wasn't there for, but still, he would have been a lot more informed that he was. She had been lying to him all along, even going as far as to give him a fake name when he said that he didn't know his name.

Kyoko could tell that Train was angry at her, and she didn't want to look him in the eyes after that. She didn't really know what to say to him. She had tricked him. There were no two ways about it. She had purposely deceived him, and there was nothing she could say that would make such a stain go away. Train had different plans, though. He knew what she had done, and he had a general idea of why she did it. He wanted to hear it from her, though. He wanted to hear from her what she was thinking when she lied to him over and over again.

"Why did you do it, Kyoko?" He asked, staring into her chocolate brown eyes. "I really loved you!"

"Don't lie to me!!" Kyoko yelled. "Gary loved me!! I knew that the minute that Gary found out that he was actually Train Heartnet, that he would leave and return to his life as a sweeper, because a normal life just isn't good enough for the Black Cat, is it!!??" Kyoko yelled at him, tears flooding her eyes.

"What are you talking about!? I _am_ both Train Heartnet and Gary Sennex! Did you think I would be any less grateful that you picked me up off the street if I knew that those dreams I had been having were real!?"

"YES!! If you must know…………. I-I-I did think that! When you were Train Heartnet, you never loved me! But after I found you on the sidewalk that day and took you in, you looked at me differently. Train was always annoyed by me! Don't lie to me and say that he and I were friends. He was my friend, but I wasn't one of his! Gary was different! He appreciated me, and understood me! But now that you've got all of your memories back, I can tell that you aren't going to stick around! Call me pathetic if you want! I don't care, you're probably right, anyway! But I just wanted you to LOVE ME!!!!" she screamed, unable to control her voice by the end. She was wavering, and immediately after she finished, she fell to the ground, sobbing.

Looking at her, Train instantly felt bad. He never really thought about how his ignoring her actually affected her. He always sort of assumed that she was oblivious to the fact that she annoyed him. Before he went to that subject, though, he asked Sven and Eve to leave for a few minutes. At first, Eve was hesitant to leave. She didn't want to leave Train alone with Kyoko when both of them were in such delicate states, she said, Train physically, and Kyoko on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Train understood that she was worried about him, but he insisted that she leave so that he could talk to her alone. It was sort of a private matter, after all. Finally, Eve relented and followed Sven outside and closed the door, walking down the hall a ways so that they could give Train and Kyoko some room.

Back inside the room, Train looked at Kyoko. She looked different. Rather than her usual composed, albeit somewhat silly self, she looked broken and kind of… unstable. It was a little bit unnerving to see her shaking violently on the floor, trying as hard as she could to get control of herself, but failing miserably.

"Kyoko…" he started, walking over to her and crouching down next to her, taking her hand in his own. He looked at her face. Even tearstained, it was beautiful. It reminded him so much of Saya's face. Their personalities were completely different, though. It wasn't like he was just replacing Saya with Kyoko. Kyoko was her own woman, and that was obvious from the moment that Train met her. "If you _knew_ that you were annoying me, why did you continue to do what you did?" he asked. It didn't make any sense to him.

"I-I didn't know h-how else t-to get your attention. When I first met you, I knew you were special. I tried kissing you, but you didn't like that. So then I tried needing to be saved by you. That worked and you said you'd protect me. But then I had to go back to Jipang and I thought you were leaving me, so I kept calling you so that you wouldn't forget about me…" she said, looking more vulnerable and childish than ever. She looked so innocent and helpless, that Train couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Though he knew now that he didn't really feel any romantic affection toward her, he wasn't just going to leave her, now that they had been going out for over a year. But he didn't know what to do. How could he handle it? From what he remembered, he had never been very good at handling women. They were too tempestuous for him, and Eve just proved that with gusto. She broke his ribcage. He couldn't let Kyoko know that, though. It wasn't important. Kyoko was. He had been with her for over a year. They had slept in the same bed, shared an apartment, made love, eaten together. She was the one who encouraged him to write his first novel. And it was a big hit. He owed her a lot. She had taken him in when he was alone and without any memories. The least that he could do was try to help her now that he knew he had to go back to his old life.

"Kyoko-chan…"

"No!! Don't say it!!" she yelled. "I don't want you to tell me! Please… Just… sleep with me one last time…" she said, looking into Train's eyes lustfully. Now Train was torn. What could he do? He didn't love her. Could he really have sex with someone that he didn't love?

_But she wants me to… But it's wrong… But she wants it, and it's her last request… But I don't love her like that… But she loves me like that… But what happens if she gets pregnant… She knows about that possibility… I can't do it. I won't._

"Kyoko-chan, I can't. I don't love you like that. I really enjoyed our time together, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything, but I need to go back to my old life, and you need to go back to college. I have no doubt that you'll find someone that will make you happy someday. That someone won't be me, though. Goodbye, Kyoko…"

"Wait!" she said quietly, but forcefully. "Can I have one last kiss, please? Is that so bad?"

Train sighed and then leaned in to kiss Kyoko one last time on the lips. As he drew near, though, he could feel a malevolent and oppressive heat rising off of her face. He knew what was about to happen and he jumped back just in time to dodge a fireball that had been aimed right at his face. He couldn't deny that the heat had hurt, but he had dodged most of the damage, with only a small burn on his left cheek. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only side effect. He was now breathing raggedly and heavily from the exertion. He knew that he couldn't overexert himself, but he had to escape this alive but without killing Kyoko. She was powerful, though. He had almost forgotten about Kyoko's Tao ability, "flame".

"That was a good dodge, but I knew about your injury the moment you came in. Your chest is bleeding, Kuro-sama…" she said softly and maliciously. Train felt his chest and realized that indeed, hot red blood was dripping down the front of his shirt, soaking through it and staining the floor below crimson.

Train grabbed the gun from his pocket and reloaded it. He only had six shots to knock her out. He fired and she destroyed the first bullet with ease with but a snort of heat from her nose. He would have to bounce the bullets in such a way that she wouldn't be able to react in time to stop them with her heat. He fired at the very edge of the television. It ricocheted off of it and hit the lamp, then flew straight into Kyoko's ankle, causing her to gasp as she fell and shoot a huge, uncontrolled fireball at the wall with the television. The wall and the dresser caught ablaze. Train knew that he had to reach Kyoko. He ran toward her, but in her eyes at that moment, he knew what she was about to do. She was about to take herself out and everyone else in that hotel out with her. He had to stop her in any way possible. That meant doing the unthinkable. As she plugged her nose and blew up her cheeks with air to blow a fireball, Train fired directly at Kyoko's head, killing her instantly. It was the first time in five years that he had ever killed a person, and he never planned to repeat it again. Fortunately, he had shot her just in time. The explosion happened, but it was small, and merely incinerated her own body. However, the rest of the room was still burning down, and Train had to get out. He also had to get everyone else out of the hotel. They were on the top floor, so the fire would spread to lower floors slowly, maybe not at all, but everyone on Train's floor was in danger.

Train raced to the door and kicked it down, running out into the hall just as more debris fell into the room, effectively collapsing it. He saw the fire alarm down the hall and ran toward it, yanking it down and sounding the alarm throughout the entire hotel. In lower floors and all throughout the hotel, Train saw people coming out of their rooms, confused at first, then scared, then panicked. Hundreds of people ran past him, frantic to get to the stairs. Several times, in fact, Train had to jump out of the way, further hurting himself in the process. After a while, though, the din died down, and Eve grabbed Train and Sven and dragged them to a window. She kicked the glass out, sending shards flying down to the streets below and then jumped, sending the three careening down the twenty floors to the pavement grave that inevitably awaited them. Naturally, being of sound mind, and thin memories, Train yelled at Eve angrily for having sentenced them all to death. Sven was a fair deal calmer, though, and soon, Train knew why, as Eve reinforced her hold on them and sprouted large and fully functional wings and flew the three to safety.

They were safe, but Train felt worse than he ever had in his entire life, not because he had just been thrown from a burning building, but because he had just killed a woman, a woman who loved him, and who he loved in return. He may no longer have had romantic feelings for her after he got back his memories, but he still cared about her, and he killed her. He was naturally wondering if there had really been no other way to take care of things without killing her, and he inevitably came to the conclusion that there wasn't. Although, if he was being fair, she was about to kill herself, anyhow. She was going to use her own body as a bomb to destroy everyone in the hotel, and in killing her, he had quite possibly saved over a thousand lives, including Sven's and Eve's. That didn't really make him feel any less guilty about what he had done. Suddenly, though, Train felt very faint. He could feel his breathing becoming shallow and his vision turning black around him. After a moment of swaying where he stood, he collapsed to the ground, slowly fading into unconsciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Train could hear his own gentle breathing as he lay in bed. But breathing didn't hurt anymore. He must have been at a hospital. Though his eyes weren't open, he didn't need them to know where he was. It had to be a hospital. The smell of medicine, the sound of nurses and life support machines in the background. He wasn't hooked up, of course, as his injuries were fairly minor, but he could hear several rooms past him. He had long developed a sense of hearing so acute that he could hear through solid walls, even if he wasn't paying attention. When he was paying attention, though, like right now, he could often hear through several walls, if the walls were of poor quality. There was the smell of four people in the room. Two were female, and two were male. One of the males had to be the doctor. Train could tell because he was talking in medical jargon and he had no idea what the man was saying. The second man, as far as Train knew, was Sven. He recognized Sven's cologne. It was cheap, which was good, because Sven rarely had a lot of money, given his career choice.

The first female was Eve. That was a no brainer. He could tell Eve apart by her smell. She smelled like crushed lilacs and clover. It was a nice smell. He could never tell her that, though. She would probably laugh him out of the country. The second female he didn't recognize immediately. He would have to hazard opening his eyes momentarily. He didn't want to risk it, though. What if he missed hearing something important because he opened his eyes too soon? Fairly soon after that, though, the doctor left, and Train decided to sit up and look around. The first thing that he noticed was the IV that was in his arm. Then he noticed the light streaming through the window. That meant that he had to have been asleep for at least one day. The third thing that he noticed was the ever elusive thief-for-hire, Rinslet Walker, standing there and looking at him. She grinned brightly and waved.

"Hey, Train-kun!! Long time, no see!" she said. The next thing he noticed was that Jenos Hazard was also standing there, grinning like an idiot, as always. That was so him. Shortly after Eden, Rinslet and Jenos started going out, but they had to have been dating a long time. Train was 27, now, which meant that Rinslet was 23, and Jenos was probably 31. That meant that they had been going out for four years. That was a really long time for a relationship to last. Train wondered what else he had missed in the four years that he had been away, so to speak. It was more like he had fallen off the face of the earth, and in truth, Train Heartnet had. Born in his place, though, was Gary Sennex, bestselling author.

That reminded Train that he still had an obligation to his company to finish the series. He generally didn't like being bound by anyone or anything, but in this case, he would make an exception. He had truly enjoyed writing those books, and he wondered if Sven and Eve had read them. Had Rinslet read them? Had any of the members of Chronos read them? If they had, he realized now that he might be in trouble. He would have to be more careful in the future not to divulge any valuable information on Chronos. That could get the erasers on him in a heartbeat. He wasn't particularly afraid for his life, but he didn't want to put Eve and Sven in danger. If he remembered it properly, that didn't go well that time that Baldor and Kranz attacked them to kill Kyoko Kirisaki. Of course, if he hadn't been a kid at the time, it would have gone much better. Also there were other factors, such as the fact that they were really after Kyoko in the first place, and that Jenos stepped in at the last moment. Jenos was a good guy, and Train didn't think that he would hurt him or Sven or Eve, but of course, he couldn't be sure. After all, he was an eraser for Chronos, and a Chronos number.

And on top of that, being a close to mid range weapon fighter, he was a bad match for Train, bad on Train's end, anyhow. He could easily split any bullets that Train could fire and on top of that, even if Train used trick bullets like a freeze bullet or a burst bullet, they wouldn't do much damage, because they would only damage one or two wires. He would still have eight or nine more that he could use. Train always knew full well that he couldn't trust any of the members of Chronos, most of whom, even if they were Train's best friend before, would turn on him in a second were they ordered to do so by the elders, or by Sephiria. In fact, he had no doubt that Even Sephiria would be willing to kill him if she had to, and that wasn't a fight that he wanted to get into. She may have seemed gentle on the outside, but inside, she was a heartless assassin, just like the rest of them.

"My, Train. I'd no idea that you thought so little of me…" came a calm, gentle voice from the doorway. In it stood the one and only Sephiria Arks, a tall, beautiful blonde woman of about 33 years, though she looked like she might only be 25 or so, due to the medical procedure that she underwent when she was born in order to speed up her natural healing. In addition to that, though, it also caused her to age slower than most. This meant that she would likely live to be 130 or so years old.

"Huh? Oh, right… When did you get here, Sephiria?" he asked, rather unfazed by her entry, and by her comment. Apparently, her sarcasm was completely lost on him.

"Miss Walker, Jenos-san, Mr. Vollfied, Little Princess? Could you please allow me a minute alone with Train…?" she asked cheerfully, smiling as she asked this as if it were natural that they would leave him with her. She had phrased it as a question, but she wasn't really asking. The small group sighed and complied, knowing that she wasn't as sweet and gentle as she appeared. Train, Sven, and Eve had all seen her in battle before, and it was quite a sight to behold. When she held Ichthys in her hand, nobody could touch her. She could slaughter hundreds of full grown men in an instant like so many flies in a bug zapper, and it was not her sword that they feared. It was the one wielding it. Her skill with the blade was legendary, and it was said that she could make dozens of lacerations with a single swift slash of her saber (A/N: The alliteration was indeed intentional).

Walking out, the four moved into the hall and closed the door with Sephiria waving goodbye to them. She then looked at Train gravely. He knew instantly what she wanted to talk about. She would have come to him whether he was Gary Sennex, or Train Heartnet, because it was about Chronos, and all that he knew about them, and all that he could reveal about them were he to continue publishing his books.

"Train, first, let me congratulate you on getting your book published. It was brilliantly written and equally brilliantly advertised. Is it true that they are going to make a movie out of it?" Sephiria asked. She rarely got to go to the movies, given her career choice, but when she did, she thoroughly enjoyed it. She would have to find time to see this movie.

"Yes. It's still in the early stages of production, though. But you didn't come here to tell me what a good job I did. You came here to warn me not to divulge any confidential information about Chronos."

"I did indeed. I am sorry that you view me in such a suspicious light. However, trust me when I say that I would take no joy in killing you, but that I would if I had to in order to protect Chronos. While you value your freedom and your comrades, I value equally much Chronos and all that it stands for, and I will fight to the death if necessary to defend that," she said, looking at Train solemnly. Train nodded. He already knew what he was going to write about in his second and third books, and none of it involved Chronos overly much. He usually only mentioned Chronos in passing, and when he did go into greater detail, the details were about common knowledge, such as particular Time Guardians' weapons, and any other abilities that the Time Guardians had. He was also planning to go more into depth about the Apostles of the Stars in the books to follow. Sephiria had no need to worry.

"I understand. I didn't really intend to talk much about Chronos. The story, as I am sure a smart woman like you can figure out, is more about the adventures of a fictional character named Train Heartnet, as written by an author who has never had any contact or knowledge of Chronos outside things that anyone could find out such as the names of the Time Guardians and their weapons of choice."

"It isn't what you want to talk about that I worry about. It is what you could reveal, were you to become so inclined. I am merely warning you that Chronos has much sway over every major publishing agency, including yours, and we will get a copy of the manuscript before it is published. Therefore, you would be wise not to divulge any information that could be harmful to us. Until we meet again, though, I wish you a speedy recovery, and hope that you come to terms with all that bothers you." Sephiria said this seriously as she began to walk out. As she looked back at Train, she gave him a look that told him that she knew exactly what had happened between him and Kyoko. Then her expression softened and she smiled slightly.

"Please don't think ill of me. I don't really like threatening people. I prefer to let them make their own choices. And I am sorry about Miss Kirisaki."

Sephiria had always felt a sort of sisterly affection for Train. It was something that she didn't feel for many people. She had long since learned to distance herself from others. Her life belonged to Chronos, after all, and everything else, including friends, family and even her own wellbeing, were secondary. That did mean that she didn't have much of a social life. She had a boyfriend at one time… She was about 22 at the time, and he was 24. But he left when he found out what she did for a living. After that, she no longer tried.

The tall blonde eraser sighed and walked out of the room, passing Sven, Eve, and Rinslet as she went. Eve stared hard at her, only to receive a smile back, and Rinslet stuck her tongue out at her. Rinslet had bad memories with Sephiria Arks. She had once been used by that woman in a failed attempt to destroy the Apostles of the Stars. In the process, one of the Chronos Time Guardians had been killed, and one had been seriously injured, and had not to that day woken up from his coma. The doctors said that there was little hope that he ever would, too. Sephiria knew that her job entailed getting used to losing comrades left and right, but it didn't make it any easier to see good men go like that. Beluga and Nizer had done nothing to deserve their fate. They were the best of the best, they were good men, Beluga sacrificed his life to save the other two, and Nizer still was in a coma, even with Beluga's sacrifice. It wasn't fair.

Sephiria thought this as she walked out, but then was instantly stopped in her tracks by the sight of a man she had formerly believed to be dead, Charden Flamberg, a tall, slender, wavy long blonde haired man with blue eyes and an ironically handsome face, despite the fact that he constantly kept it covered up with sunglasses and a top hat. Sephiria knew that he was an extremely dangerous man to Chronos. For reasons as of yet unexplored, he bore Chronos a grudge and had the dangerous ambition to bring Chronos down. He was constantly searching for information on the elders of Chronos, although no regular members of Chronos would know any information on the elders, and the Time Guardians would all sooner die than tell anyone about their leaders. All in all, it was a futile goal for one man with no information. However, he still posed a threat, and therefore, he had to be dealt with.

"Hello, Mr. Flamberg…" Sephiria said, losing her wistful smile and putting on instead a hardened glare. She bore Flamberg no personal grudge, but she had orders to kill him on sight. He had already killed several hundred lower echelon Chronos members, so he was certainly a danger.

"Hello, Miss Arks, I suppose that it would be considered kosher in this situation to say that I am pleased to make your acquaintance. However, I am merely here to get information out of you on the elders. I would prefer not to have to kill you, of course. You don't seem like a bad person."

"Well, I suppose that we all have to do things that we would prefer not to do. I would prefer not to have to draw my blade in public. I consider such obscene gestures crass and unappealing. Could we not instead talk out our differences? For example, I wonder why you are so intent on destroying Chronos. Did you lose someone precious to us? Or perhaps you just feel that what we stand for is unacceptable. If it is the latter, are you not as bad if not worse than we? After all, you kill people as well. You claim that it is in the name of your greater purpose, but isn't all killing rather the same after a while, regardless of purpose?" Sephiria asked softly, fingering Ichthys in case she had to fight. She despised using her blade in public places. It was shameful in her opinion to be so vulgar as to tear up the streets in a fight. However, she was willing to stoop to any level to accomplish the goals of Chronos.

"The time for talk is over, Miss Arks. A woman such as yourself, so devoted to your precious Chronos and its ideals, would never understand my reasons for hating you…" Charden said coldly, cutting himself to draw the blood necessary to use his Tao ability.

"Ah, yes. The Tao ability of 'blood'," Sephiria said calmly, drawing Ichthys and attacking in one swift stroke of her blade. Charden blocked the blade with a spurt of blood and wrapped the blood around her blade in an attempt to disarm her. She merely threw the blade up in the air, though, spun and caught it by the handle and then slashed once, severing Charden's head from his body in one silent motion.

Upon seeing his body hit the ground, and knowing that he was dead, Sephiria sighed. Despite the fact that she was an eraser, killing wasn't easy for her. She didn't like to kill people, and she never did it if she didn't have to, though her definition of "needing to" was slightly different from Train's. For example, she would kill someone if she was ordered to by the elders. With that, though, she simply left, and called in the retrieval team to clean up the mess that she had left. There wasn't much to do, really just a body to pick up.

Back in the hospital, Sven was asking Train what Sephiria had wanted. Train, though, in spite of all of the questions that he was getting, refused to answer. He said that it wasn't important, and that she had no intention of hunting him. Although Eve didn't entirely believe him, she didn't argue, and eventually, things calmed down enough that Train had quiet again, which was what he liked. He had been changed slightly after his amnesia. He was much quieter now, and he didn't seem to smile as often. He was much more often in a contemplative mood. Maybe this was good. It meant that he was more serious. But he also wasn't as laid back. Sven and Eve had noticed this, but they weren't really sure what was going to come of it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

_Suddenly, Train found himself in a strange world. He couldn't quite describe how it was strange, but everything in it seemed ever so slightly off, like they were going to jump him at the same time. Of course, he knew that was ridiculous. Inanimate objects didn't just suddenly come to life and attack people. But still, something about the world around him made him wonder if such a thing was really impossible. Could such a thing happen? Would the chairs and pictures and carpets suddenly fly into the air and attack him? But the features of the world weren't the only things that were slightly off kilter. In addition, he could hear strange noises, like the shuffling of footsteps in the background. It seemed like whoever those feet belonged to was purposely staying just out of his range of vision, and oddly enough, his range of vision seemed drastically reduced. Yet, despite all of this, he was sure that he kept seeing something out of the corner of his eyes._

_Train wasn't a man easily scared. But this frightened him. It was like he was slowly being closed in on by an attack force from every direction, and there was nothing he could do about it. Suddenly, he saw a flash again. It was the same flash as before. Upon realizing that he had Hades on him, he drew it and fired three shots at the anonymous flash. The bullets just hit thin air, though. As the resounding sound of his bullets being fired slowly died down, Train's heart rate slowed down again. Little did he know, of course, that it was about to shoot right back up._

"_Hiya, Kuro-sama!!" came a peppy voice from right in front of him, causing Train to jump several feet in the air, leaving him hanging on a chandelier that was in the hallway. Down below, a beautiful Japanese girl in a school uniform giggled and waved her hand playfully at Train._

"_Oh, Kuro-sama, you flatter me… But I didn't think that I would scare you THAT much!!" Kyoko said in a sort of mocking tone that was positively dripping venom. Despite the fact that she had the same cheery smile on her face, there was no joy behind her eyes, only pure acid that would eat through anything or anyone foolish enough to get in her way or contradict her._

"_Although, I suppose that I'd be scared of me too if I had just murdered me in cold blood…" she said offhandedly, putting a finger under her lower lip, hooking her thumb under her chin, tapping her right foot and looking off into the distance in a stereotypical thinking pose. Her every move, her every action mocked him, dared him, BEGGED him to challenge her. She was dangerous, but not only was she dangerous, she was powerful. She was more powerful than ever, and he could feel her power radiating off of her like heat waves off of a blacktop in middle of August._

_She looked up and smiled politely at him, gesturing for him to jump down. Train looked back at her suspiciously and shook his head._

"_No. I like it up here. The view is nice…" he lied, not wanting to face her directly. Instantly, Kyoko saw through this and smirked._

"_But, Kuro-sama…" she said in mock sadness. "It would be so much easier to talk to you if you came DOWN!!" she finished, stressing heavily the last word, and before Train knew it, some invisible hand pulled him, chandelier and all down to the floor, causing the gigantic gold candle filled chandelier to land on top of him and the glass decorations hanging down from it to shatter and fly all over the floor. The force of the invisible hand pulling him had been so great that the floor was even cracked slightly from the fall._

_Train groaned in discomfort and laid there on the floor at Kyoko's feet for a moment. First, his bullets hadn't hit their target, next, he was scared of Kyoko, and now, he was weak enough that a small fifteen foot fall hurt him. He couldn't understand what was happening to him. It was like Kyoko had… That was it. He wasn't in control here. She was. He looked up and saw Kyoko smile knowingly and arrogantly._

"_I see that you've finally figured it out, huh, Kuro-sama?" she asked with a smirk. "That's right. I control this world. A building as big or as small as I want with hallways as long, tall, or wide and as simple or complex as I desire. If I wanted to, I could force you to run around in circles forever, lost in your own fucking dream. I would ask if you know why I'm doing this, but I know that you do… __**Kuro-sama**__!!" she said, her chocolate eyes suddenly glowing red with a feral hatred and her features warping, making them look positively bestial and animalistic. She looked like an angry wolf ready to jump its prey and tear it to shreds._

"_Y-you're not real! You're not real… You're not real!!!" Train kept repeating these words as if saying them enough times and with enough conviction would make them true. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be. He looked up again and saw that Kyoko was still there._

"_I'm not real, am I, Kuro-sama? What is real, anyhow? If real is merely what we can see and touch and smell and taste, then reality is only electrical impulses that are sent through your central nervous system to your brain. But do you want to know what real __**actually**__is, Kuro-sama?" she asked with a psychotic grin that did nothing to make her look prettier, and in fact, made her look quite ugly and scary._

"_You see, in this world, real is whatever I say real is! And right now, I demand that you stand up and give me the respect that I deserve, you insignificant little bug!!" she shrieked, and suddenly, Train was gripped with an agony so complete that it seemed to overcome all of his senses. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't feel the carpet below him. He couldn't see. The pain was blinding him. He couldn't hear. The ringing in his ears was so loud that all other sounds were tiny whispers at best. Slowly, Train forced himself to stand up, shakily standing in front of Kyoko, his back hunched and his arms crossed over his abdomen. Kyoko smiled triumphantly, cruelly and put her hand on Train's shoulder. Suddenly, the pain stopped._

"_There. Isn't it easier for everyone when you listen to me, Train?" she asked, grinning at him and giving him a kiss on the lips._

"_You know, it didn't have to be this way. I loved you. I gave you all the love in my heart, and until your meddling friends came back and found you, you loved me, too, am I right? Of course I am. I could see it. You did love me. But once your friends came back and reminded you of your past, you abandoned me. Then when I tried to convince you to stay…" she said, stopping suddenly after the word "stay". Suddenly, then, she began to whisper and she leaned in close to Train's ear so that only he could hear her. Then she said, "You murdered me…"_

_Kyoko then stood up straight and paced back and forth slowly as though she were a lawyer going over evidence in court. "Yes, you murdered me in cold blood Train Heartnet. Was it really so wrong of me to want you to love me that you had to put a bullet in my head, and then, to add insult to injury, you blew up my body. Now, I can never rest in peace, AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, TRAIN HEARTNET!!!!!!!" she shrieked furiously, suddenly hurling huge fireballs at Train, which he dodged, albeit slower than he would normally be able to move. After a moment, though, she stopped and took a deep breath, composing herself and dusting off her clothes._

"_Ahem, I apologize for that. It seems that I lost my temper for a moment. You can't really blame me though. The wrongs you have done me are grave indeed. I am going to enjoy killing you, Train Heartnet. But… I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of dying quickly like I did. I'm going to kill you slowly, so that you can feel every last ounce of the agony that I have felt since my death, and that you so justly deserve. That spell that I used earlier, the one that made you hurt all over, it would have killed you, had I let it rack your body for a few hours. I say a few hours, but in this world, effective time moves slower than the clocks would indicate. A clock day could go by, and not even ten effective minutes would have passed. There's no set difference between the rate of my clocks, and the speed of time in my world. However, you can figure out the basics for yourself as you slowly die here."_

_Immediately, a chair conjured out of thin air and three hideous looking monsters with slimy green skin and five arms each came out of the doors and brought Kyoko some potato chips and other snacks. She then sat down and snapped her fingers. Suddenly, Train felt the worst pain he had ever experienced. It was like he was being torn apart at the molecular level, one tiny atom at a time. He gritted his teeth, writhing in agony on the floor, but after a while, he could bear it no longer. Just as he was about to start begging Kyoko to forgive him, he heard a voice from somewhere above him. It sounded like Eve._

"_Train! Train!? Are you alright!? Wake up, Train…"_

_Kyoko looked up in disgust and then spat at Train, "Well, lucky you!! I suppose your new little squeeze has saved you this time, but heed my words… I will be back, and next time, you may not be so lucky. Happy days until then, though!!" she said, finishing on a cheery note. Suddenly, Kyoko's world vaporized around him and he felt himself falling into a dark abyss, going further and further into the darkness. After what seemed like hours, though, a bright light showed up and he fell into it._

"AAAAGH!!! *HUFF! HUFF! HUFF!!*" Train gasped, breathing in and out heavily as he tried to stabilize his heart rate. His pajamas were soaked with sweat. After a while, Train coughed, and then began to breathe normally again. He looked around, not seeing anyone at first, but then he realized that someone was holding him. He looked over and saw Eve sitting there with a concerned expression on her face, her crimson red eyes full of worry. Suddenly, though, she tried to smile.

"I guess even the legendary Black Cat has a bad dream occasionally, huh?" Eve asked, hugging Train closer to her. Train blushed slightly, but Eve didn't really notice.

"Man, you look awful! Is… Is that blood on your head!?" Eve asked, alarmed. She wasn't sure what he could have hit his head on to make it bleed like that while he was asleep, but it must have been fairly serious.

"Huh? M-my head? Oh, I-I… I did cut my head in my dream when I fell from the ceiling…" Train said groggily, feeling his head and seeing to his surprise that there was indeed blood there. If the two were connected, then he would also have a burn mark on his left foot. He pulled down the sheet, and sure enough, it looked like a burn mark, although it wasn't as serious as it had been in the dream, and it could be passed off as a normal wound.

"That's weird…" Train said quietly, more to himself than to Eve, but Eve heard him and questioned him further, "What is?"

"I have a cut on my forehead that's bad enough to bleed, but not nearly as serious as the same cut was in the dream, and I have a burn mark on my left ankle where a fireball was hurled at me, although I was also hurt by the fireball more in the dream than I was in real life."

"I dunno, Train… Sounds a little bit hokey to me. Are you suggesting this is like Nightmare on Elm Street, where all of the injuries the kids get in the dream, they get in real life? Your ankle looks more like it was scraped to me," Eve said, sighing. She tried not to sound too skeptical, but it was almost funny what Train was suggesting. Of course, she wouldn't tell Sven. He would just overreact.

"I understand why you're worried, Train. You feel guilty about killing Kyoko, so now you're having nightmares that seem to be transferring to reality, but really, you just got injuries in those places while you were sleeping and those influenced your dream. The proof is right here, Train. See? There's blood on your headboard. You hit your head there and made a wound during your nightmare."

"What about my ankle!!?" Train demanded. Eve sighed and shrugged.

"I dunno, but you should go back to sleep. You just got out of the hospital, and you need your rest."

"I guess you're right. You usually are. But if I die because of this, I'm coming back to haunt you."

"I'll look forward to it…" Eve said with a laugh as she patted Train on the shoulder and then left. Train sighed and then closed his eyes again and fell asleep. He couldn't really say that he slept soundly after that, but once he got to sleep, at least he didn't have any more dreams about Kyoko.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Train woke up the next day, less than rested, but ready to get back to sweeping. Sven had found a mass murderer/bank robber/arsonist/serial killer/rapist, Tyson Garrett… Basically, you could name a blue collar crime, and this guy had done it. Needless to say, his bounty was pretty high at $50,000,000. Supposedly, the man had once used dynamite to kill 500 people at once. It didn't really scare Train, but he hadn't done any sweeping in a long time, over a year, in fact. So he was a little bit nervous that he would mess up or something. Sephiria had been right. His personality had become more subdued and hesitant. He had never had a lack of faith in himself before, so the feeling was fairly new. It probably stemmed from the dream that he had on top of just getting back into sweeping after almost two years.

It was hard for Train to keep his mind on the job at hand. His gun, Hades, felt strange strapped to his thigh, and the clothes that he was wearing felt too heavy and they were hot. For some reason, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't concentrate. He looked around, trying to see if there was anywhere that would spark a gut instinct for him, but it almost seemed as if his instincts had died along with his memories, and even though he got his memory back, his instincts hadn't come back in the same way. He was nervous. He almost hadn't recognized Sephiria back when she visited him in the hospital, and it took almost ten seconds for him to place Rinslet's name to her face. It was like nothing was the same anymore since he had killed Kyoko. Maybe she really was in his dreams, slowly destroying him from the inside out. It seemed odd, almost impossible, but he couldn't deny that slim possibility that Eve was wrong, and that something really was going on.

He suddenly shook his head, though, and forced himself to get back to work. He wasn't sure if he would be able to handle it if more people got killed because he was derelict in his duties. Train walked silently through the back alleys, sure that if Garrett was there, he would try to pull something big. It was a major metropolis, and there were hundreds of people in shops and on the street on any given block at any given time. He could plant explosives in key places and then kill everyone in the area. Suddenly, his fears were confirmed when almost half a dozen explosions went off at the same time in the intersection adjacent to Train, destroying every shop, every vendor and killing everyone in the blast radius. Train looked around, slightly deafened by the noise that had ensued, not only from the bomb itself, but the screaming of all of the people.

When the smoke cleared, Train saw a single figure still standing, wearing a trench coat and still holding the detonator. Garrett looked at Train and suddenly started running, setting off smaller bombs that he had placed under cars as he went, partially to mock Train, and partially to throw him off. Train jumped up on the rooftops, though, and followed Garrett like that, watching as he turned a corner. Train jumped across the street, making a sharp left and landing on the building top on the other side. Somehow, Train was slower than he should have been, but he didn't dare fire his gun for fear that he would hurt someone or blow up a car by accident. He had never been nervous about that before. Next, Train jumped down into an alley that Garrett had run into and cornered him.

"I've got you, Garrett! Give up now, and I won't have to shoot." Train said, though he wasn't sure that he would be able to shoot if he had wanted to.

"You won't kill me. You're a sweeper. You have to bring me in alive to get the money. Besides, how can you shoot…" he began, drawing something quickly out of his sleeve and throwing it in Train's face, "What you can't see!!" he shouted, running past him and lighting a match next to the powder causing an explosion right in Train's face.

Train screamed in agony and fell to the ground clutching his face. He couldn't see. There was no way that he could continue to follow Garrett. Fortunately, Train was wearing an earpiece, and Sven and Eve both heard what happened. Sven ran out after Garrett and Eve ran to help Train. Eve couldn't help but think along the way that this would never have happened to the old Train. The old Train would have known how to get out of such a situation. It wasn't really the time for "if onlys" though. It was time for her to speed her ass up and get to Train so that she could help him.

Over the time that Train had been gone, Eve's view of him changed drastically. She had always seen Train as a rival before, but as she realized that she might never see him again, it dawned on her what a good friend he had been to her. It seemed like sometimes, Train had understood her feelings better than Sven did, and he was always honest with her. And, she really liked him. She was sure that he wouldn't feel the same way, though, so she didn't say anything when they met up again. Actually, now that she thought about it, she had probably driven him further away by beating him up like that. But what she didn't understand was why he did absolutely nothing to defend himself. He didn't move out of her way, he didn't block her. He just let her beat on him. It was similar here. From what she heard, he didn't foresee what Garrett was about to do to him, and now he was suffering for it. She didn't want to think about what would happen if he was permanently blinded. What would she do if he would never be able to see again? He couldn't sweep if he was blind. It was one thing for Kranz to be an assassin with a knife, which was meant for close quarters combat, but Train only used a gun, which was mid to long range combat.

Finally, she rushed into the alley, and saw Train lying there, his face badly burned and bleeding. She knelt down next to him and tried looking him in the eyes, but his eyes had been burned out.

"Eve-chan… I-is that you?" Train asked, feeling around for her, and finally touching her shoulder. He turned around and looked at her, even though he couldn't see and tried to smile, though his smile was awkward with a burnt face like that.

"Train! You look awful! What happened?" she asked worriedly. He sighed.

"I don't really know. He threw some powder in my face that blinded me and then lit a match and it exploded right in my face… I can't believe that I didn't dodge that!" he said, hitting the ground. He wasn't sure what was wrong with him, but whatever it was had to be pretty serious, because he had just screwed up in a big way. It was true that the burns all over his face hurt, but more than that, he felt humiliated that he had screwed up so badly in front of Sven and Eve. He didn't know what he was going to say to them later if they didn't catch the criminal because of his mistake.

Meanwhile, Sven was chasing down Garrett, who was quickly running out of steam, and out of tricks. He had used up most of his bombs and he didn't have any more of the powder that he had used to blind Train. Finally, Sven fired a net from his attaché case and caught Garrett, who squirmed for a minute or two, but finally gave up.

"Damn you!!" he shouted. "I hope your partner is blind forever!!" he spat, glaring hatefully at Sven, who kicked Garrett in the face and then picked up the net and carried it to the police. $50,000,000. That would last for quite a while. But it wasn't only the money that Sven was after when he did sweeping. He liked the excitement of chasing down his targets, and he had always had a strong sense of justice, so it wasn't really unnatural for him to be a sweeper.

That night, Eve couldn't sleep. She had to do something to help Train. There weren't very many options for someone who had been burned as badly as Train was. She could inject some of her nanomachines into his body and hope that they sped up his healing, but even fast healing wouldn't regenerate that kind of damage. She could go to Dr. Tearju, or another expert in nanomachines and ask them to create some regeneration nanomachines, but that would take time and a lot of money, neither of which they had. Despite the fact that they had $50,000,000 now from the bounty they just collected, they still owed a lot of money from new debts that they racked up. The third option that she had, one that she hated the idea of, but that she didn't think there was another way around, was to visit an old nemesis. It wasn't Creed. Creed couldn't help them. It was the Doctor, the man who tried to dissect Eve. She hated the thought of going to _him_ for help, but his Tao gave him the ability to heal wounds, no matter how grievous they were. He could surely repair Train's face. She was sure that he would ask for something in return, though, and she was pretty sure that she knew what it was.

(A/N: I know that this chapter is short, but, the next one will be longer, I promise.)


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Eve steeled herself and then walked into the prison building. It was a large concrete building, as most prisons were, with steel bars at all of the windows, and guards at all of the doors. This prison, however, was particularly well guarded. Apparently they hadn't killed the Doctor. Instead, they had merely imprisoned him for life. She had gone to Creed and gotten a fake attorney's badge so that she could talk to the Doctor in confidence. Then she had found out where Doctor was being held. Irritatingly enough, he was being held in a maximum security facility on the other side of the country, and she was expected to go all the way there. Of course, she did go, because she really wanted to help Train. As yet, she hadn't told Train and Sven. She lied to them and told them that she was visiting Dr. Tearju for a little while to talk to her some more about her research at Torneo's mansion.

Even once she had gotten into the waiting room, the place wasn't very crowded, and guards were watching their every movement. Apparently not many of the prisoners here had anyone who wished them well. Eve wasn't surprised. She wouldn't want anything to do with any of these prisoners either. There was only one prisoner that she cared about.

"Alright Miss Vollfied. You can come visit your client, now." Came a voice from across the room. She looked up and saw a gaunt man with greasy black hair and glasses that nearly slid from his face, now, but wicked, angular eyes behind them that gleamed with predatory instinct. He was a thoroughly disgusting man, but she needed him. Eve stood and thanked the guard and then sat down, picking up the phone and listening to the Doctor begin the conversation.

"My, you're married to Mr. Vollfied, now? Color me impressed…" he said in a soft but dangerous voice.

"Not married. Adopted by. And I don't care to make idle chitchat with you. I want to discuss how you're going to escape this afternoon in the exercise yard. Eve said coldly, leaning in toward the glass so that the Doctor could see that she wasn't fooling.

"What an audacious young woman you are…" he replied mockingly, smirking at what she had said. "Don't you think that I've already formulated and failed several escape attempts? Forgive me, but I am an exceptionally smart man. Of course, I would probably seem rather slow and dull witted to a prodigy such as you, Miss Volfied, wouldn't I?"

"I have no opinion on it either way…" she said indifferently. "Listen, tonight when all of the prisoners are outside in the exercise yard is a perfect time to act. They'll be full of energy because it's the middle of the day, and they'll have been cooped up inside since the same time yesterday, so they'll have energy that they need to get out. Do you have any friends in this prison?"

"Friends? No. I do have a few associates who have gathered around me, though due to my skill at analysis and organization. The men in this prison are strong, but they have no sense of what to do. They need someone smarter than them to hold their hand constantly and give them direction. Without some such person, they're as lost little lambs in a big cruel world. Easy pickings for the wolves."

"Don't care. You need your associates to start a prison riot. That shouldn't be too hard, given the violent nature of these men. Offer them in return for their services freedom, and they'll jump at the chance to do whatever you say. You can be the brains, and they can be the muscle. After that, since you probably know the prison inside and out by now, find a back way out, maybe through some vents or something like that, or dig out, I don't really give a shit, but meet me at 0000h twenty miles due east from the prison yard wall. I'll tell you why I'm doing this then. Until then, goodbye and good luck. If you aren't there by 0030h, I'm leaving."

"Very well, Miss Vollfied. I will be there."

With that, the Doctor smirked and walked outside the phone booth and allowed the guards to put his chains back on and take him back to his cell. He was getting out of there. After four long years of hard time, he would be free… And he had just started to get used to the rats.

*1400h in the prison yard*

"Okay, men, so you know the plan? Please refrain from speaking unless spoken to until we're outside the prison walls. This is for your own benefit as well as for mine. I trust that none of you want to be caught escaping?"

"N-no sir!" they all said stupidly and enthusiastically. Fortunately, one of them had received extensive Green Beret training. He wasn't the brightest crayon in the box anymore, because he had hit his head one too many times, but he was monstrously strong, and the doctor had snuck some nanomachines in and injected them into the giant oaf, increasing his strength a further 37.98%. He was now stronger than any human could ever hope to be. It also had the useful side effect of making his skin extremely tough, so normal bullets bounced right off of him. The worst that he would get from a 9 mm was a bruise. He had become something of a legend around the prison yard, and all of the other prisoners respected him, as much as any prisoner could respect another. But they would listen to him. If he told them to riot, they would ask how loudly.

So, the five of them and the doctor went into the prison yard and waited until everyone was at their desired locations. The entire plan was going much better than the doctor could have hoped. All of the prisoners were behaving exactly as Eve had said they would. They were cranky and violent from being stuck inside, and it had been raining for a while, so they had been inside for at least three days. They needed a good outlet for their energy, and the doctor was just too happy to oblige.

"Alright, now."

"Hey everyone!!!" the former Green Beret called. The entire yard looked up at him, paying rapt attention.

"RIOT!!!!"

That was all that he needed to say, and suddenly, weights, balls, stones and other objects went flying in every direction. The prison guards who were watching the prisoners groaned and started to take out their batons and their mace. This was when the doctor led his group of comrades back inside. They walked through the empty mess hall and climbed up on a table, and into a ventilation duct that was just big enough for the biggest one to fit through. The doctor wasn't sure at all if it would hold, but it was heavy duty, so it should have. He led the way through the winding ducts and eventually got to a fan, where he stepped aside and let the Green Beret crush it outward. Then, they ran toward the walls and the doctor took a small vial out of his pocket of green liquid.

"Would any of you gentlemen have a match and a wick or cigarette?" he asked kindly. One of them nodded and handed him a lighter and a cigarette. The doctor put the cigarette in the liquid and lit the cigarette, putting it standing up at the bottom of the wall, and then ordered the rest to stand back. It would take about ten seconds. He watched with anticipation as the clock ticked down and then….

"BOOM!!!!" the nitroglycerine exploded and blasted the wall open and all six of the former prisoners ran out and away to safety. The doctor was surprised that Eve's plan had worked so well. He would have to thank her when they met up.

*0000h, 20 miles due east*

"Hello, doctor. I see that you didn't bring your friends. Did you part ways after your escape?"

"We did. I'd like to thank…"

"Later. Right now, we need to get back to where Train and Sven are staying. Train was injured severely recently in a sweeping attempt. His face was blown half to hell and he's blind, now and his face is terribly burned. I was wondering if your Tao could fix that."

"Hm. Could it be that perhaps you're in love with Mr. Heartnet? Why else would you help a man escape from prison just so you could fix your partner's face? I always wondered if such a thing might come to pass. It's a shame, though. While my Tao does allow me to fix such injuries, it's taxing on me, both physically and mentally. I would need a pretty big favor in return for such an undertaking."

"I helped you escape, didn't I!?" Eve snapped angrily, glaring at him.

"Indeed. And I haven't forgotten that. However, two things I need right now are a hearty meal, as I have not eaten properly in four years. As you can see, my physical body has rather taken a turn for the worse. And second is a personal favor from you."

Eve looked at him with utmost loathing and wanted to punch him, but restrained herself, knowing that Dr. Tearju was the only other option, and that she would be expensive to work with. She was incredible, but even she didn't have unlimited money, and she would need a lot to fund regenerative nanomachines.

"What is it?" she asked suspiciously. The doctor laughed slightly.

"Oh, nothing as vulgar as you're probably thinking. No, I want what I wanted four years ago. To be able to dissect and study you. You're a fascinating creature, Miss Vollfied. You seem human in every way, and yet, underneath, you are a veritable killing machine, capable of changing any body part into any shape you desire. All you have to do is think about it, and your ability to think is extraordinary. Being a clone of Dr Tearju Lunatique, your IQ is probably somewhere around 225. She is one of the greatest minds of the millennium, and you are an exact copy. Wouldn't you want to study such a creature if you could?"

"I'm not a creature, you creep!!" Eve spat, her eyes filling with tears at the things that he was saying about her.

"I'm a human, just like anyone else!"

"Human? Hardly. The minute that they put an organ in your body that produced nanomachines, you ceased to be human. You are something different, something removed from the rest of us, something superior even to the infallible Black Cat. Do think about my offer, by the way, because I don't plan to stick around your rinky dink town for long. I wish to get out and see the world again."

For a moment, Eve hesitated. She hated the idea of letting this disgusting man cut her open, but she would also never forgive herself if she could have done something to help Train and she didn't.

"F-fine. You can cut me open, do research on me. After you fix Train, I'll tell Sven and Train that I want to wander around the town for the day. They won't come in my room at night, and they won't be suspicious until the next day, so you have 24 hours to do whatever you want to me, as long as any scars can be hidden and you don't kill me."

"These terms are agreeable to me. I never really intended to kill you, anyhow, and 24 hours should be plenty of time to learn everything that I need to know about you…" he said, following Eve to the train station so that they could go back to meet Train.

*The next day—Train's bedroom*

"Train?" Eve asked quietly, knocking on his door. Train answered and told her to come in. Following her, the doctor smirked and started to remove the bandages from Train's face. He looked closely and then nodded.

"Hm… These burns are serious. I can fix them, though…" he said with a laugh, starting to use his Tao ability. Slowly, the burn scars began to disappear, and Eve began to recognize Train's face once again. Last, he went for Train's eyes, which took longer to do because they had nerves attached to them, but it wasn't altogether too difficult. When he was finished, he smiled at Eve wickedly and then walked aside with her.

"Do not forget your promise, Miss Vollfied," he said with a snicker. Eve stuck her tongue out at him, but nodded curtly.

"Don't forget yours, pervert…" she whispered back. That was the only word that she could think of to describe a man who would ask a teenage girl to let him dissect her. She had known all along that such a request was possible, coming from him, but she had hoped that it wouldn't come to that. Nonetheless, she waved goodbye and closed the door in his face immediately after he got out.


	7. Chapter 7

Warning: This chapter that you find yourself about to read is blatantly violent, extremely explicit and describes the dissection in vivid detail of Eve. If anyone here is squeamish, I would highly advise you not to read this chapter. Although it does somewhat further the plot, it will not be necessary for you to understand the next chapter or any chapters thereafter. I feel obligated to give you this warning because unlike most mature rated fanfictions, which are merely rated M because of some smutty scenes in them, this one actually has stuff that could probably make someone of weak constitution vomit. You have been warned.

Chapter Seven

Eve looked around cautiously, making sure that nobody was watching her. She knew exactly where she was going, and though she wasn't happy about it, she knew that she had made a promise. She wasn't one to go back on her word. Although she doubted that the doctor would, or even could do anything were she to renege on her promise, she felt like she had to do it. Also, though, she didn't want to put Train and Sven in danger if the doctor were to decide that he did want to get revenge.

A small underground laboratory that the doctor had probably had long before he had gone to prison or even joined the Apostles. That was where she was headed. Aboveground, the lab looked like a dilapidated building that had long since been abandoned. However, Eve knew better. She knew that underground, it was probably more technologically advanced than most professional hospitals. It probably had all manner of nanomachines and other gadgets that were decades ahead of their time. She couldn't completely imagine what it might be like in there, nor did she want to. It was too creepy to think about. She didn't exactly relish the idea of taking her clothes off in front of the doctor, either. He always came across as a pervert or a child molester. The doctor would probably be appalled if she actually said that to him, but she didn't plan to say anything, so it wasn't going to be a problem.

As she got outside, she turned to the left. It was a nice night for a walk. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to enjoy the view. She had to get to her "appointment" on time, or the doctor would keep her over the 24 hour time limit, and that would be bad. She started into a run, not fully paying attention ahead of her, as she was focusing on the signs that she was getting close. She didn't want to miss it. That was one thing that she didn't have time to do. That was why she was so chagrined when she ran into a hulking figure in the streets.

"Hey, watch it… Hey… Larry! We got us a real looker here!" The man exclaimed enthusiastically, grabbing Eve and beginning to pull her into the alley. Eve didn't have time for that, though, so she twisted the man's arm behind his head, snapped it at the shoulder and flipped him over her shoulder by one arm and then finished with a nanomachine hammer to the face, crushing his nose. She looked around fiercely daring anyone else to try to attack her. None did, so she quickly left, not eager to waste anymore time.

When she finally got there, she rang the bell at the building and was admitted. Immediately behind the door was the doctor, who smiled at Eve and said, "Hello, again, Eve. I wasn't sure if you would really keep up your end of the bargain."

"Unlike some people, I have some decency in me…" Eve said somewhat vainly to him. He just smirked and led her down the stairs into the lab. When she got there, she saw two people. One was Dr. Tearju, and she was chained up in the corner to the wall with duct tape over her mouth, and the other was Leon Abbott, the former Apostle of the Stars that Eve had first defeated in Eden. His face was chalk white, and she could see him trembling. He looked terrified for some reason. Maybe the doctor had forced him to be here, threatened him or something.

"Leon-kun… I-it's good to see you again, but… you look awful…" Eve said quietly. Leon nodded and then turned away, throwing up into a trash can. The doctor sighed and patted Leon on the back.

"I understand, Leon-kun. You're young, and inexperienced with being involved in hurting others. You'll grow used to it, being my assistant, and soon, it will be as natural as breathing, hehehe…"

"N-no…" Leon said softly, barely able to raise his voice above a raspy whisper. Apparently, he had thrown up more than once at the concept of dissecting someone. Eve knew that he had seen blood before, but he had probably never had such direct contact with it. Sure he had killed people with his wind Tao, but that was relatively clean, and didn't spill much blood. There was going to be a lot of blood here.

"P-please don't dissect her, Doctor!!" he begged, barely able to stand now, for his quaking knees. "Please! Y-you can dissect me instead… I don't have anything t-to live for, anyway! Nobody would care if I died…" he said, trying to reason with a man who was utterly insane. Obviously, it was pointless. The doctor only wanted Eve.

"No, Leon-kun. I could never dissect my valued assistant. And besides, I have no interest in your inner workings. Eve is something different, something more or less than human, depending on how you want to look at it. Some would consider her a superior human. Some would consider her a monster, meant only to kill. Me? I see her as neither. She is merely an opportunity to learn more than I ever could on my own. You've no idea how bored I've been. After I perfected the immortality nanomachines, there was nothing left for me to do. My mind was stagnant. But that's neither here nor there. Leon, wash your hands and put your gloves on. Eve. Remove your clothes and lay down on the table. Don't worry, I have no desire to harm you sexually, although I can't vouch for Leon-kun…" the doctor said with a smirk, causing Leon to turn bright red. Eve watched as he shook his head violently.

"N-no! I-I would never d-do such a thing!!" he said a little too heatedly. Eve sighed and went over to him, putting her arms around him, waiting until he stopped shaking.

"It's alright, Leon-kun. I volunteered for this… I knew what I was doing when I agreed."

"B-but why, Eve!? Why would you _let_ this freak cut you open and poke at your insides!?" Leon asked wildly.

"I had to… I had to do so to save the person that I love…"

The doctor didn't say anything, but merely pulled Eve over and pointed at the table. Nervously, Leon washed his hands and turned aside as Eve undressed. In the corner, Dr. Tearju looked on in horror at Eve. She couldn't believe that she was doing this. In fact, she wasn't even sure how she herself got there. She had been in her house, and then someone hit her over the head, knocking her out, and when she came to, she was in the lab, cuffed to the wall with duct tape over her mouth. Her glasses were skewed slightly, so it was hard for her to see. Apparently, the doctor noticed this, because he looked at Leon and said, "Leon-kun, before you get your gloves on, why don't you go and push the professor's glasses up her nose. It can't be easy for her to see like that. And pull the duct tape off her mouth, I would imagine it's hard for her to breathe."

Sure enough, she was having some difficulty breathing, but not so much that she would die from it. Leon hesitantly walked over and knelt down in front of Tearju, apologizing softly and pulling the duct tape off her mouth. Professor Tearju let out a painful whimper at the tape pulling away from her flesh and then he pushed her glasses up her nose. Secretly, though, he dropped something on the floor next to her and eyed it so that she would notice it. It was a file. He couldn't risk giving her the key. That would have been too obvious, but with a file, she could slowly cut away her manacles and hopefully escape. He didn't want to see her die. He didn't want anyone to die.

"Leon-kun, are you done? Please strap Miss Vollfied onto the table. We can't have her moving and messing up the procedure. That might cause damage that even her nanomachines won't be able to heal. As it is, we don't want to leave any scars. Personally, I find scars hideous, and professionally, easily noticed scars are the mark of a novice surgeon. A good surgeon should be able to cut a person open and leave no trace that they were there. Don't you agree, Professor Tearju?"

"HOW COULD YOU BE SO HEARTLESS!! EVE-CHAN IS JUST A CHILD!!" Tearju screamed at him, spitting as far as she could. The doctor merely laughed.

"My, how unladylike. It's no wonder your college sweetheart married another woman…" he said, causing Tearju to retch slightly at his words. That topic still brought up painful memories. She had graduated Harvard Medical School at age fourteen, and her boyfriend, who was also a med student, albeit an extremely bright one, was twenty years old. He ended up leaving her saying that she was too immature for him. She suspected now that it was because she wouldn't have sex with him, but back then, she couldn't understand where she had gone wrong.

"But, nonetheless, there are probably many in our field that would agree that Eve-chan as you call her is a necessary sacrifice for the sake of science."

With that, the doctor said no more, but put on his gloves, mask, lab coat, and goggles, and ordered Leon to do the same. Leon silently did this, although he was still feeling somewhat nauseous, and when ordered to bring the needles for bloodwork, he did so without question. He couldn't question the doctor's orders. Leon had finally found a family that would take him in, and the doctor had threatened to have them all killed if he didn't obey him. Leon wasn't sure why the doctor needed his assistance, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to know, but he did know that it couldn't be anything good.

After Leon brought over the needles and tubes, the doctor took one of them and put it in Eve's arm, attached to a tube, and began to draw some blood. The blood flowed easily out of Eve's arm, probably because her heart rate was so high. As the doctor finished, he handed the tubes off to Leon, who shakily put them in a holder for later study. Leon felt like he needed to throw up again. Apparently, the doctor recognized this, because he told Leon to go outside the room to do it if he had to. Quickly running out, Eve soon heard the sound of Leon hurling and coughing violently. She couldn't believe that the doctor had dragged Leon into this as well. "How far did this man's evil go?" she wondered vaguely.

Finally, he turned around and saw Leon standing there. He told Leon to get a scalpel, which he did immediately. The doctor put his hand up to Eve's Carotid to feel her pulse. It was fast, racing in fact. The doctor sighed and pretended to look concerned.

"Miss Vollfied, would you feel better if I gave you a minor sedative for the pain? Wait, we only have 24 hours, correct?"

At this, Dr. Tearju's eyes widened. 24 whole hours?! She wondered. She wasn't even sure if Eve could last that long. After all, she was only seventeen, and a fairly slender and petite seventeen year old at that. How much blood could she stand to lose?

"I would prefer it if you lived through the procedure, now, Eve, so I'll ask that as I'm opening you up, you use your nanomachines to clot the bleeding. We don't want you bleeding to death on the table, now do we?"

Eve shook her head and prepared to use her nanomachines under the highest of stakes. As the doctor inserted the scalpel into her sternum, she felt a sharp stab of agony. However, she forced herself to focus as the doctor drew the scalpel down her chest and into her abdomen, and making an "I" shaped cut so that he could look inside. First, he looked at her regular organs and how they connected. The doctor seemed impressed to see that they were all the same as regular human organs, save that they had one more tube going through all of them that connected to the extra organ that Eve possessed that created her nanomachines. Next, he poked her heart slightly to see how it would react. It seemed as though he was having fun with this. Eve was in terrible pain, such pain that it was blinding to even be awake for the procedure. The doctor watched as Eve's breathing started going faster and faster, and her lungs began to pump harder and harder.

It took a while for Tearju to break through the shackles, but finally she did, and she shouted to distract the doctor and then kicked him in the face. One thing that she always had been fairly decent at was martial arts. Leon saw his opportunity at this, and shoved the doctor into the next room, sucked all of the air out of it and slammed the door shut. He then watched with grim satisfaction as the doctor suffocated and died in the vacuum that had been created. Tearju ran over to Eve, who was barely breathing, now. Her pulse was weak. She needed to be sewn up immediately, and have the bleeding stopped. She ordered Leon to get the stitching thread while she washed her hands and put on gloves, and together, the two of them managed to save Eve and put her back together.

Once they were done, they cleaned up slightly and found a hotel that they could stay at for the rest of the night. Eve would live, mostly because of the nanomachines still at work within her body, healing her wounds and replacing the lost blood. She probably wouldn't have any noticeable scars, but there was always a chance that something had gone wrong. The doctor had been insane, and Tearju couldn't guarantee that he had used clean instruments, though she suspected that in his vanity, he had cleaned all of his tools thoroughly before using them. She sighed and told Leon to go home, that she could take care of Eve until morning, when she could bring Eve back to Sven and Train. The two would probably be furious at Eve for disappearing from their house like that. She didn't know exactly how Eve got out, but she did know that they wouldn't have let her go if they knew what she was doing. Furthermore, from what Eve had said earlier, she was trying to save Train or Sven's life.

Tearju sat up for a while, just watching Eve, but eventually, she also fell asleep, being rather tired from all the excitement that night.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

_Bii bii bii……… Bii bii bii……… Bii bii bii…_

Tearju woke up to the sound of a cell phone going off. Tearju looked around groggily and saw that there was a phone in Eve's pocket that was ringing. It was a pretty ring, and it sounded like the ringing of church chimes, actually. She listened intently for a moment, getting down the intonations, but finally realized that someone had to answer it. It was either Sven or Train. Before she could get to Eve, though, Leon woke up and stretched and took the phone out of Eve's pocket gently, making sure not to wake her. He didn't want any more than Tearju to wake her up when she direly needed rest. After all, she had been dissected just the night before.

"Good morning, this is Leon Abott, may I ask who's calling?" Leon said into the phone, not thinking about what it was going to look like to have a male answer the phone at 5:00 in the morning, especially when it was Sven who was calling. Sven would be out for blood, whether or not Leon had actually done anything with Eve, which he hadn't.

Unlike Leon, though, Tearju knew full well the implications of Leon's actions, and that was why she smacked her forehead. She couldn't believe that she had so stupidly sat there for those seconds and listened to the cell phone ring. That had been dumb, and now she was paying for it. Leon was going to answer, Sven was going to jump to a conclusion about what had happened, and the whole thing would spiral down from there.

"Abott? Why does that name sound familiar? Were you that boy whose father was killed by the police officer?" Train asked, putting his thumb up to his lower lip and biting the nail, thinking hard.

"Um, no. I'm not sure e-exactly what you're talking about, Black Cat-san, but I used to be in the Apostles of the Stars…" Leon said, turning slightly pink. Eve's cell phone smelled just like she did, like lilacs and strawberries. He blushed at even the thought of knowing what Eve smelled like. It made him feel like a real creep, kind of like a stalker. Why did that thought turn him on, though? Disgusting. Surely he wasn't that much of a pervert.

"Huh? You mean the wind kid with the green hair and the goggles?" Train asked, somewhat irked that Leon had answered Eve's phone. He had expected to hear Eve's melodic voice, not Leon's somewhat nasaly and much deeper voice.

"Hehe… Y-yeah, that guy. Anyway… I-is there anything I can help you with Black Cat-san?" Leon asked respectfully. He knew that the best method in these kinds of situations was to be polite. He was calling Train by his title, using –san at the end of his name, and he was speaking in a formal dialect. He really couldn't be any more respectful than that.

"Yeah." Train said irately. "You can tell me what the hell you're doing with Eve's phone."

"Oh, um… Well… I-it's not what you think. I-I ran into her and some lady that looks like she could be her older sister or something, and Eve was hurt, so I helped them find a hotel in the area, and…"

"Yeah… You know, Abott, you're pretty bad at lying. If you're going to try to lie to me, at least do a better job. Where were you really?"

Suddenly, Tearju snatched the phone away from Leon, who did a double take at his hand and then looked at her helplessly. He already felt like enough of a creep even sleeping in the same room as Eve, let alone that Tearju had forgotten to put them in separate beds. Normally, he wouldn't even have thought of such a thing, but he had felt so sick the previous night that he hadn't thought of much of anything before he fell asleep. What was worse was the dream that he had. A dream that he didn't even want to think about. A dream that Freud would have had a field day with. Suddenly remembering the dream, Leon felt his body heat rise and his face turn bright red. Tearju looked over at him as if to ask if he was alright. He nodded. He didn't feel alright, though. He immediately thereafter ran into the bathroom, slammed the door, and ran his head under the bathtub faucet, pouring ice cold water over his head. When that didn't work he ran over, grabbed some paper towels and let nature take over from there.

Outside, Tearju listened to Train talk for a moment. He was pretty annoyed. Apparently, he thought that he was still talking to Leon. Tearju just giggled slightly at some of the things that Train was saying. He actually sounded more like a jealous boyfriend than an angry guardian, which led Tearju to wonder if maybe Train had some interest in Eve as well. It wasn't that Tearju really minded. It was actually kind of cute, and if anyone was to have feelings for Eve, she would feel comfortable knowing that it was someone as honest and decent as Train.

"Train-san? This is Tearju Lunatique… How are you doing?" she asked sweetly into the phone.

"Wait! So the brat wasn't lying when he said that he ran into you and Eve!?" Train asked, incredulous. He had been sure that Leon had been trying to make up a story after… well… he didn't even want to think about it.

"Oh, he was lying alright. Your intuition is as sharp as ever, Train, even over the phone…" she said, half joking, as Train could easily tell, as she was giggling a bit. "But I suppose that it would be easier to talk to you in person about what happened. Would you be agreeable to come down to the Grand Mason Hotel on Third and Main? If you want you can bring Sven, but it's not necessary." Tearju said quietly with a smile, hearing Leon in the background. She laughed to herself slightly, thinking about what she had been like as a young girl. She was fourteen when she started dating a man in her med school class. He was much older than she was, though, and it didn't work out.

"I'll be right down. It shouldn't take that long to get there."

Train headed out of his room and down the twilit street, the neon lamps still burning above him, casting their orange glow upon the sidewalks below. It was a beautiful morning, with Venus still glowing white in the early morning sky and the sun just barely peeking over the horizon, casting a pale pinkish hue over the sky and long, thin shadows on the ground. It was chilly that morning for an early spring day, though it was supposed to go up into the high 70's later. All around him, the sakura were blooming on the trees and petals were wafting around him in the breeze, coating the streets in a soft, delicate layer of pink. In looking at it, Train couldn't help but notice how romantic it would be if he brought a date to the park (three guesses who the date would be)… On second thought, Eve would probably be so insulted by how cliché the scene was that she would sooner throw up than even hold his hand…

Of course, that was the feeling that he got from her most of the time, anyhow, so he didn't really know why he thought being in a cliché romance scene would make it any different except to make his feelings just that much more blatantly obvious. That was one thing that he didn't want. Though he desperately wanted Eve to return his feelings, he didn't want her to know that he had feelings for her in the first place to return. It was an irony fit for an epic, to love the adopted daughter of your best friend and partner, but to know that it wouldn't work… Or would it? No. Once that kind of thinking got into his head, questioning whether he was really right about things not working, such thoughts never left, no matter how much one tried to suppress them. That was why he could never start thinking like that. It WAS impossible, end of story. It wasn't as much that he was afraid of what Sven would do. He could easily beat Sven in a fistfight. He was younger, better trained, and more agile. It was that he didn't want to lose Sven as a friend.

For the longest time, Sven had been the only friend that he had. He had made enemies of everyone in Chronos. It had seemed as though hatred was all around him, closing in. He had lost Saya, the one woman that he had ever loved because a psychopath with a vendetta was deluded enough to believe that killing her would change Train back to the man that he had been before he met her. Creed should have known better. Train had talked to Creed again back when he first reunited with Sven and Eve, but for some reason, he wasn't sure if he could talk the same way again.

He pondered these thoughts as he turned into the hotel and walked over to the elevator, ignoring the man at the desk who was looking oddly at the gun strapped to his thigh. Train carried the gun everywhere. He couldn't imagine travelling without it anymore, and he wondered now how he had managed without it while he was Gary Sennex. It seemed like all that time just sort of blurred into the background. He remembered what he had written in his first book, and he was well on his way to completing the second book, but it was fuzzy to him at best exactly what he had done when he was with Kyoko. It had once been so clear, but now, it was like he was an old man trying to look back at memories of when he was a kid.

Without even realizing it, he had been standing before the door for almost a minute when he finally came back to himself. So, he knocked, and was answered at the door by Eve herself. She stared at him for a moment with her usual deadpan stare and then embraced him tightly, causing Train to stagger backwards for a moment.

"Why so affectionate, princess?" Train asked obliviously, not seeing the stitches that were on her chest. Such a wound would have caused quite a scar for anyone but Eve. She had regenerative abilities, though, because of her nanomachines.

"Oh… I-I did something really stupid last night Train. I hope you and Sven can forgive me…" she said, crying on Train's shoulder. She had never really been afraid that she was going to die before that night, but while she was on the table, being dissected by the doctor, she was so scared that she would die without ever being able to tell Train how she felt about him. She knew now that life was far too short to stall telling someone something important for fear of being embarrassed. She would probably be embarrassed, but she had to do it anyway, and she was sure that Train of all people wouldn't laugh at her.

"Eve… Of course we'd forgive you. What happened?" Train asked, hugging Eve back, now a little bit concerned about her.

"Y-you see, two days ago, I helped that doctor freak escape from prison, and two nights ago, he healed your face, restoring your vision. D-do you remember that?"

"Sort of. I didn't know who did it. I kinda just thought that you had injected nanomachines into my face or something."

"Well, last night, I kept up my end of the bargain and let him dissect me…"

This was all Eve had to say before Train stumbled back again, utterly lost for words. He gaped at her for a moment and then looked down, noticing the blood on her shirt and the stitches that were on her chest.

"Why did you do that?" Train asked, looking down at Eve's distraught face.

"W-well… H-he said that the only way he would heal you was if I let him dissect me afterwards. I-I mean…" she started, blushing furiously, "I couldn't just leave you in that condition. I had to find some way to heal you. I knew that the doctor was the easiest way to do it!"

"But I'm _not_ that important!!" Train said urgently. "Injury is one of the inherent risks of being a sweeper! If I hadn't been prepared to be hurt, I wouldn't have taken such a career. Why would you subject yourself to being tortured by a lunatic like that!?" Train asked, shaking Eve rather heartily. Eve could feel tears building up in her eyes. She had hoped that Train would understand. He didn't understand at all. He didn't understand in the least. She had just almost died for him and he was _angry_ at her.

"It's because I _love_ you, alright?" she screamed. "You're… You're such an insensitive jerk!! No wonder Saya was about to leave when she died!!" she screamed, shoving him off of her and running off down the hall and jumping from an open window. She dropped a few stories in a freefall and then grew a pair of wings and flew away. She didn't know where she was going, but she couldn't be around Train at the moment. She needed to be alone, needed some time to gather her thoughts and try to start thinking rationally again.

Once she got to a quiet place, though, she sort of wished she hadn't tried to think rationally again. She had been really upset in the hotel and without thinking, she had said something really hurtful to Train. Sometimes Train was a bit thickheaded, but one thing nobody could accuse him of was being uncaring. He cared about his friends and comrades more than anything. Now that she thought about it, he was probably just trying to understand her, but Eve couldn't possibly see why Train would ever want to talk to her again after what she had said to him.

Collapsing on the park bench, she put her face in her hands and began crying. She couldn't control herself anymore. She wasn't usually the type to cry, in fact she could probably count the number of times that she had cried in the past on one hand. Especially because of how she was feeling at the moment, she was shocked to feel a familiar hand on her shoulder and a pair of strong arms embracing her.

"Hey, Little Princess… You know, I didn't mean to upset you. I just… Couldn't understand why you would go so far for someone like me…" Train said, sighing, looking at Eve and smiling. Even with the smell of blood on her, she still smelled like lilacs, clover, and strawberries.

"W-what do you mean… someone like you?" Eve asked, curious now. Train looked away for a moment and then looked back at her.

"Eve, w-were you serious, when… you said that you loved me?" Train asked nervously, knowing that the subject would have to come up eventually.

"Oh… I-I was serious. Such a joke would really be in bad taste, right? A-and… I'm sorry about what I said about Saya… I didn't mean it, Train…"

"Actually, I've always suspected that myself, anyway. I always suspected that because I hadn't talked to her for a week, that she was angry at me and was going to leave. She was always too kind to ever say such a thing, but when she told me that, I knew that she was angry," Train said, brushing his hair back out of his eye, revealing a huge gash on his arm. She gasped when she saw it, and leaned in closer to take a look at it.

"Train, what happened?" she asked, holding him tightly. He shrugged and shook his head, though. Despite that, she knew that he was lying.

"It was that dream again, wasn't it? The one with Kyoko…"

"Yes… It's nothing that you should be concerned about, though, Princess. I promise I'll be fine."

"You're lying. You know now that every time you go to sleep could be your last. Either you were woken up very fortunately by Sven this morning, or she's killing you agonizingly slow, drawing out your pain for as long as she can. We need to see an expert on this, but who would know about such things? There aren't many Tao users these days, and those that do use Tao are generally secretive about it."

"What about that Shiki fellow? He knows a lot about the traditional Tao, and probably about Tao theory as well." Train offered. Eve nodded resolutely, and then looked at Train again, blushing slightly.

"Train, d-do you… love me, too? I-I mean _really_ love me… Like you loved Saya-san?" she asked, looking away for a minute, the blush escaping her cheeks, now, and climbing up the rest of her face. Train looked at her for a minute. He couldn't deny it any longer. He needed her more than anyone, and it would be wrong to lie to her after she just risked her life to save him.

"I do, Princess. I love you very much…" he said with a smile. He had never been so nervous around Eve before. Before then, it had always been a comfortable feeling that he got around her, but now he was getting all hot and bothered.

"W-will you k-kiss me, then?" Eve continued shyly, turning ever so slightly pink again. Train was sweating now. She was so goddamn cute. He couldn't help but think how it should be a felony to be that cute. Interestingly, he had never felt the same way about Tearju. She was nice and all, but somehow, in some subtle, yet apparently grand way, Eve and Tearju were very different, both personalitywise and in looks. Maybe it was because Tearju was older than he was. Even though Eve was supposed to be her clone, something about her made her completely different from Tearju, besides the nanomachines of course.

Train nodded silently, closing his eyes and leaning in toward Eve. This would be his first time kissing Eve. He was a little bit nervous. Finally, though, after what seemed like age after unbearable age, their lips met and the two lovers embraced each other warmly, kissing under the rising sun and the Sakura petals that were wafting around in the early morning breeze. These two things were criminal in a different way. They were criminally cliché, and Train would have probably chosen a less hackneyed site for their first kiss, but he couldn't say that he wasn't happy right there where he was sitting as well.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

"Lord Shiki will see you now…" came a quiet, and slightly hostile voice from the doorway. A man peeked out and looked cautiously at Train and Eve, showing due suspicion toward these new foreigners who claimed to know Shiki. He felt that he was justified in feeling suspicious, as one had crimson red eyes, one wore the look of a man who had spilled positive rivers of blood, and the third carried a gaudy black gun at his side, and had a tattoo on his chest. If it had been up to him, he would have thrown the visitors out upon first seeing them. However, his lord and master, Shiki was a very generous and patient man who generally gave an audience to all who came requesting one, even when he was feeling under the weather, which was actually much more often since his mysterious disappearance about five years back.

He gestured for the three to follow him, and watched as they stood up and walked quickly after him. Leaving the door open, he led them down a long hall that on either wall were fantastically complex mosaics of past battles between Tao users and other inhabitants of the Dark Continent. Hanging from the ceiling were chandeliers of equal complexity that practically dripped crystals that spread the light emanating from them in beautiful rainbow patterns all over the solid wood and carpeted floors. Even the carpets on the floor were magnificent, as they seemed to be made of the finest material that must have cost in the billions to buy. Train couldn't imagine how much the entire estate must have been worth.

After what seemed like miles of endless hallways with an equally endless supply of doors on either side, they reached the audience chamber, where the man walked in and bowed low to Shiki, glaring at Train, Creed and Eve to do the same. Eve and Creed instantly fell to one knee, bowing respectfully, and Train soon followed, judging that it would be unwise to provoke these people. There were guards all around the chamber, and though Train had no doubt in his mind that he could defeat all of them without trouble, he did not wish to cause a scene. The first reason was that he actually kind of liked Shiki. He never gave off the vibes of an evil person, merely one who was struggling with a need for revenge. Train had always thought that Shiki's entire family was annihilated. However, that was obviously not true, as the proof of their continued existence was right before his eyes.

"Creed-san? Black Cat? And Tearju's clone?" Shiki asked, standing from his seat and walking down to see them. Usually, he would wear his blessed garments to cover his face so that his chi wouldn't escape, but since he returned, he had been given a belt that served the same purpose. Eve looked at him somewhat grumpily.

"You know, I do have a proper name!" she snapped at him. She hated being called things like "bioweapon", and "Tearju's clone" and all the other things that inconsiderate and ignorant people constantly associated her with. She didn't care if this man was the only way to lift Train's curse. She refused to allow him to be so rude.

"Please forgive me, Miss. Please tell me your name and I will refer to it properly from now on…" Shiki said politely, bowing in apology. Despite the fact that he was richer than most kings, he wasn't conceited or lofty headed at all. In fact, he was quite down to Earth and humble.

"It's alright. I'm Eve. But we didn't come here to chit chat…"

"I know…" Shiki said, his face sobering even more than it had been already. He looked at Train, closing his eyes and feeling the dark and dangerous aura that was radiating off of him. It was nothing like Train's aura, though. Just like some people never forgot a face, Shiki never forgot an aura, and Train's aura was not this dark or this threatening.

"You have a pretty deadly curse upon you, Black Cat. I will do what I can. However, a curse of this magnitude and this advanced state would kill any normal man long before it got this far. I can guess that you've probably been cursed for almost two months now. Even a man of your power, Black Cat, would be lucky to last one. But please, follow me…"

Shiki stood and led them out into the hallway again and into the next room, which was empty, but had a magic circle painted in ink in the center of the room.

"Please sit in the center of the circle and remove your shirt. I'll draw the necessary runes on you and the floor and we will begin the ceremony. Miss Eve. Would you please set up four candles around the outside of the circle and Creed-san, would you please sprinkle some salt around the room?"

Eve and Creed set to work and Shiki knelt down next to Train, slicing his wrist open with a silver blade and beginning to draw symbols along Train's shoulders and arms, spreading them out in a web-like pattern down to the floor so that it looked as though Train were underneath a web of runes. As Eve lit the candles, the bloody runes began to glow slightly, and Train slowly nodded off to sleep.

"Gods of light and darkness. The four winds. Wind, Water, Earth, and Fire. Bind the curse that afflicts this man and protect him from further harm. Evil spirits that inhabit Train Heartnet, be banished back to the darkness from whence you came."

Then Shiki stopped talking and watched as the runes glowed brightly, shining crimson like the eyes of a demon. He watched as they attempted to lift the curse, but after ten minutes of this, they finally went out and evaporated off of Train's skin, and Train opened his eyes again, shaking his head to wake himself up.

"I do apologize, Eve, Black Cat, Creed-san. There is little that _I _can do. However, if I knew more about the curse, perhaps I could prescribe a more specialized course of action. If the details are not too personal, would you please tell me as much as you know about it?"

"Well, almost three years ago, now, I left the company of Sven and Eve and then somehow lost my memories, although ironically, the memories of how I lost my memories are also rather fuzzy. Anyway, Kyoko Kirisaki found me and she took me back to her place and eventually we started going out. Shortly after that, I started having dreams about my former life. Thinking that they were just dreams, I took Kyoko's advice and wrote them all down and then she got it published. I don't know if you read much, Shiki, but, a man named Gary Sennex published a book called Black Cat about a year and a half ago…" Shiki nodded at this. "Anyway," Train continued. "About three months ago, I ran into Eve and Sven, and was about to go back to sweeping with them. I was kind of annoyed that Kyoko had kept my memories from me, so I had broken up with her, but then a fight broke out. She was about to blow up the hotel that we were in, so I shot her in the head and stopped her before she could hurt anyone. And anyway, then I started having weird dreams about Kyoko being like a super villain, and all of the injuries that I sustained in the dreams started happening to me in real life as well. I know it sounds like a bad horror movie, but this is actually happening."

"Actually, such a thing has happened before. The Nightmare on Elm Street series is actually based on true events. A man named Fredrick Krueger, who had learned to use the abilities of Tao from someone whose name is still not known was murdered by the people of Elm Street, and he came back as a dream monster to kill their kids. It's rare for such a thing to happen, but when a powerful Tao user dies with an unsettled vendetta, there's the possibility that their spirit can manifest as a ghost or as a curse that plagues the person against whom they have the vendetta. In this case, it seems as though Miss Kirisaki's ghost is haunting your dreams and doing real damage to your body. Odds are that if you don't placate the vengeful spirit, that next time, you will be unable to awake from your nightmare and she will kill you."

"Okay… Is there anything that we can do to help him, Shiki-san!?" Eve asked, leaning in eagerly.

"Yes. However, Train must become a Tao user in order for it to work. Fortunately, I have just enough elixir for Train to become one. The process, as Creed well knows, is dangerous, and runs the very real risk of killing the drinker. He will go into a coma, which usually lasts between three days and a week. If he survives, he will awake with Tao powers and the knowledge of how to use them. Take it if you wish, Black Cat." Shiki said, pulling a small vial of clear liquid out of his robes. His attendant gasped and waved his hands wildly.

"Lord Shiki! You mustn't allow outsiders to learn of the Tao! It could cause disastrous results!" he said anxiously. Shiki looked at him and actually smiled for once. It was kind of odd to see the usually taciturn man smiling, but also kind of nice.

"It is alright. If there's anyone that I trust with the Tao, it's the Black Cat. He will not abuse the power it gives him, and it is the only way to lift his curse."

Train thought about it for a moment and then took the elixir and unstopped it, drinking it down in one gulp. The potion was bitter, tasting strongly of chemicals and acid. However, he hardly had time to notice, as almost immediately after he drank it, he fell to the floor, convulsing. Eve ran over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, but was thrown off when his arm splayed out wildly. His body was beyond his own control. The pain that racked his body was awful, but he gritted his teeth and bore with it for a moment until finally, he collapsed on the ground, unconscious, in a deep coma. Eve slowly sat up and walked over to him cautiously, picking him up on her shoulder. He was heavy, but she somehow managed to drag him to a bed that Shiki said he would provide for them. When he was finally in bed, Eve sat down, exhausted. It had been a lot of work bringing him through all those hallways. Though Train wasn't by any means fat, nor was Eve particularly weak, he was still a lot heavier than she was, and it took the help of Shiki to lift him and actually put him in the bed.

"Since Train will be here for a week, you are welcome to stay as well, Eve. However, for now… I must get back to what I was doing before. Please stay in any room you like that isn't occupied." Shiki said, giving a small smile and then leaving.

As he left, Eve waved at him and then sat down next to Train, gently brushing a strand of hair out of his eyes. She knew that he couldn't feel anything, nor could he sense anything, but she liked to feel like she was there for him when he was vulnerable like that. After all, despite the fact that the Tao was an incredible power, drinking the Tao elixir left one exceedingly vulnerable for the small amount of time that they were unconscious. Creed had privately spoken to Shiki about some other matter, and he and Shiki had left together. Eve had a feeling that she knew what Creed wanted to talk about, but she wasn't confident enough in her knowledge of Creed to assume anything. If she had to guess, though, she would say that he probably wanted to make amends with Shiki for using him like he did. After all, Shiki had been bent on revenge back then, and Creed had used that and misled Shiki into believing that he was going to use the Tao to effect a revolution, when all he really wanted was to rule the world. That had been a major betrayal of Shiki's trust, and Eve wasn't surprised that Shiki was so shocked to see Creed standing there before him. It didn't slip past her that Shiki had momentarily choked on thin air when he saw the silver haired man.

But all that aside, she looked at Train one last time and then followed the other member of Shiki's family out of Train's room and into a room of her own. He led her down a hallway that was a fair deal longer than the rest, and then took her to the right. She wasn't sure how she was going to remember where she was going. After all, all of the hallways looked sort of the same, and she had lost track of the number of rights and lefts that she had taken almost an hour before when they were first going into the audience chamber. Finally, though, they reached a room where the man bowed and opened the door, standing back to show her the room. She bowed in thanks and smiled at him. He merely stared back at her blankly and then walked off, telling her that he would bring some dinner up to her room later, and that she was free to wander the grounds if she desired. At the moment, though, Eve was rather tired due to jetlag, and merely wanted to take a nap. So, she walked into the room, bowed once more and shut the door, falling onto her bed and falling asleep almost instantly.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: This chapter has a lemon in it. If you don't like lemons, you shouldn't have read this fanfiction in the first place. However, I will cut off the chapter where the lemon begins so that you don't have to read it if you don't want to.

Chapter Ten

Slowly, Train could feel consciousness slipping back around him. He could see and feel the light filtering in through the windows by his bed and the warm rays of the sun shining down on his face. He laid there for a minute, not moving. He felt different, though he wasn't exactly sure how. Thinking for a moment, he remembered that he had drunk the Tao elixir. That had to mean that now that he was awake, he had to have some sort of power. He got the feeling that it would have something to do with his gun, but of course, he couldn't be sure. He thought for another few minutes, contemplating his options, now. He hadn't had any dreams while he was in a coma. That was fortunate, and the end seemed to be coming. Now all he really had to do was communicate during his waking hours with Kyoko's ghost, and that would be that.

Suddenly, then, it came to him. Rail gun. That was his ability. He had the Tao ability that he used to have from the nanomachines that were coursing through his blood. However, after Eden, he lost the ability, and frankly, he didn't need it. Once more, though, he could shoot bullets at ultra-high speeds using electricity. His eyes shot open and he looked around, noticing that Eve was sitting in a chair next to his bed staring at him blankly. She smiled slightly and then frowned again.

"I was wondering when you were going to stop pretending to be asleep. So? What is your Tao?"

"Rail gun," Train said simply. Eve nodded. There wasn't much that she could say. It certainly was an impressive ability, but she didn't have anything to say about it for once.

"Ah, Black Cat-san, Miss Eve… You're both up. How are you feeling, Black Cat?" Shiki asked wispily as he walked in, eyeing Train and Eve.

"Good as ever…" Train said enthusiastically. "So, why did I need the Tao to defeat Kyoko? I'm not going to have to fight her, am I?"

"Well, you really didn't need the Tao. I was just curious to see what the feared Black Cat would get when we gave him Tao elixir. Truth be told, I've always sort of wondered."

"So, basically, you just wasted a week of our time?" Train asked matter of factly. Shiki shrugged. "Not actually a week. It was more like five days. But yes, I suppose you could say that. I do apologize, but what is your ability?"

"Rail gun. I can use the same ability that I used to be able to use because of the nanomachines. So, what now?"

"Well, now I bring you into the ritual room like last time, and we are going to begin the forced possession ceremony. It will work best if the subject of the possession is female, so I'm guessing that Miss Eve is going to do it. If not, we have spirit mediums on the estate that would be glad to do it for you."

"No. I'll do it." Eve said quickly. She wanted to be part of Train's recovery. She wanted to be able to help in any way that she could. This was a feeling still left over from when she first joined the team, and she felt a little bit left out because Train and Sven were so much more powerful than she was.

Shiki stood and led Train and Eve out of the bedroom and into the next room over. It was a different room from last time, but it looked similar, and already had an all purpose magic circle in the center. Shiki drew some blood and began to draw runes and other shapes on the floor all around the circle and then lit several candles, saying a mantra as he did so. Slowly, the room began to resemble what the other room had looked like the last time, and then Shiki went over to Train and drew a symbol on his own hand in blood and then thrust his palm into Train's chest, driving Train back a meter or two. Train gasped quickly. Shiki may have been small, but he was strong, and had taken Train by surprise.

Suddenly, they saw a ghostly figure of Kyoko in the room above their heads. She screamed at them and tried to attack until Shiki used a talisman to suck her in and then force her to possess Eve's body. The difference, Shiki explained, between most possessions and a forced possession was that in a normal possession, the ghost's personality takes over completely. In a forced possession, the person being possessed still has a level of control over their own body. However, it is still an effective means to communicate physically with the astral body of a ghost.

"Now, from here on in, you two will be alone. I will not bother you, and I have instructed the rest of the family to do the same. This kind of ritual is deeply personal, and is best left between those who are directly involved. When I shut the door, no one will be able to get out until the ritual is over, however long that takes." Shiki said calmly, walking out, sliding the door shut and putting a talisman over the door to seal it shut. It could still be opened from the outside, but not from inside, at least at the moment.

*Here's where the lemon begins*

"Now, Kyoko… What do you want from me?" Train said to Eve. The ghost that hung above eve smirked and pretended to think for a moment, and then a voice that sounded like Eve's voice and Kyoko's voice mixed together came out of Eve's mouth.

"I want what I wanted that day in the hotel, Train. I want you to make love to me one last time." She said in a demanding voice. Train fell back for a moment. He couldn't believe that Kyoko was asking that of him. It was wrong on so many levels. He couldn't have sex with her. First of all, he would really be having sex with Eve, and he couldn't do that to her when she didn't really have a choice in the matter. Second of all, he couldn't have sex with Kyoko while he was dating Eve.

"I-I can't do that, Kyoko, you know that!" Train said hesitantly. Kyoko looked at Train for a moment, almost as if she had expected such an answer, and then screamed, "THEN PERISH, YOU CONTEMPTIBLE BASTARD!!!" Eve was about to attack in proxy for Kyoko, but she managed to stop herself before she used her nanomachines to kill Train. She then looked at Train kindly and said in her own voice "It's alright Train. I'll do anything to help you…"

Train sighed, and nodded, kissing Eve gently on the lips, staring into her beautiful crimson red eyes. Eve smiled back at him and returned the kiss.

"You're a virgin, right?" Train asked, not unkindly, but concernedly. Eve nodded shyly.

"Tell me if you ever want me to stop. My life isn't worth hurting you," Train said. And he meant it. He didn't want to live if it meant that he had to hurt Eve. Eve smiled and nodded. Then the two embraced and kissed passionately, tongues thrashing against each other's mouths. After a little while, Train dominated, and he pulled Eve down to the floor with him, laying gentle kisses down her shoulder, leaving small marks where they had been. Eve moaned in that double voice. Train felt a tiny bit guilty, but he knew that Eve was alright with it, and he knew that Eve would be honest with him if she wanted him to stop… wouldn't she? Okay, he wasn't sure about that. He really hoped that she took him seriously, though.

After a few minutes of kissing, Eve pulled off Train's shirt, and dragged her fingers up and down his smooth, firm chest, causing Train to purr like the cat that he was into her kiss. She smiled and then slowly began to unbutton her own dress, revealing herself to him. Train sighed, but not in hesitation this time, and he unhooked her bra and began to massage her left breast while he gently licked her right one, causing Eve/Kyoko to gasp in pleasure. Even though he wasn't sure at all about this, it felt better than anything he had ever felt before in his life.

Next, he pulled down her black and white striped stockings, touching her pussy through the fabric of her panties, causing her to cry out Train's name in ecstasy. Finally, he pulled down her panties and inserted his finger into her opening and moved them around, touching her clit while he was at it. As he did this, she jerked, hardly able to contain the pleasure that she was feeling. He could hear both Kyoko's and Eve's cries of satisfaction as he pleasured her with his fingers and finally, Eve released on Train's hand. Train then pushed Eve on the floor and removed his own pants. Pushing slowly into Eve, he heard her gasp in pain as he entered. Train offered to stop, but Eve shook her head, indicating to keep going. So, Train pushed all the way in, breaking past Eve's barrier and burying himself to the hilt. He rested for a moment inside of Eve so that she could get used to having something in there. Then he began to thrust, moving harder and faster as he went, causing Eve/Kyoko to scream out in ecstasy. It was a supernatural pleasurefest as Train thrust in and out of Eve, building toward climax until both of them came at the same time.

"F-fuck my ass… Please, Train-kun…" He heard Eve/Kyoko say. He nodded and pushed into her ass, his cock already lubricated from fucking her pussy. He didn't wait long to begin thrusting this time, and he moved quicker than before, thrusting so hard and fast that he became a blur behind her and their screams reached up to the ceiling and reverberated off the walls of the rather empty room until they both came once more. Then they collapsed together, and Kyoko smiled at him, now able to rest in peace. She grinned and waved goodbye, disappearing from behind Eve. Train, breathing heavily, looked lovingly at Eve and kissed her. Eve smiled and kissed Train back, and in that way, they fell asleep, not to wake for several more hours.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

"So, Train, Eve, did you manage to deal with your nightmares?" Sven asked cautiously. Train nodded. It had been almost a week, and he hadn't had a single nightmare. It was a dream come true for Train (get it? I know, bad, right?).

"Yep. I sure did. Check out what else I got, Sven!!" Train said brightly, aiming Hades at a tin can and firing a plain bullet. An electric burst came out of the end, shattering the gun once more, but the bullet flew true and hit the target, vaporizing it. Unfortunately, his gun, as he had forgotten, was no longer completely made of Orichalcum. He would have to get it sent to someone who would be willing to work Orichalcum. After all, he certainly had plenty of money to do so. After all, he had written a bestseller, and was already about to make a deal for a movie on the first one. In addition, he was finished writing his second novel in the series, the second out of anywhere between eight and ten novels. Thus far, he had made over $10,000,000 just from the first book alone, and the movie was due to make more than twice that (curse the lazy people who don't want to read the book.)

Train smiled at Eve and the two joined hands, not caring that Sven was there, too. Sven already had known that they were going out, though, and he didn't really mind. Of all of the people that Eve could have been saddled with, Train was by no means the worst. In fact, he was probably the only one that Sven trusted completely… If only he knew what had gone on behind sealed doors. The next day, Train was due for another talk show in America this time. He wasn't exactly thrilled to be doing it, but he was getting paid to go on, so he figured that he might as well.

The next day, Train and Eve walked onto the set, waving at the audience with cheerful smiles on their faces. It had been almost a year since they had first met again on the day that Kyoko had died. Train shook hands with the talk show host and the two sat down on the seats that had been prepared for them. As usual, the host was a loud man who actually wasn't bald this time, but had graying black hair and bright blue eyes that seemed to be far too deep and probing for someone of his profession. The man smiled brightly at Train and began.

"So, Mr. Heartnet…" he boomed. "We hear that you finally retrieved your lost memories, and what a shock it was to find out that your stories are actually autobiographical. Tell me, is _all_ of what is in the stories accurate?" he asked. Train smiled and laughed a bit at this question, but answered honestly.

"As bizarre and unlikely as it sounds, it did all actually happen that way. Perhaps you remember the incident about five or six years ago with the International Federation massacre?"

Many of the people, even though it had been so long ago, did indeed remember.

"That was actually carried out by the Apostles of the Stars." Train said with the same grin that he always seemed to wear, regardless of the situation.

"Amazing. So, I see that you have your girlfriend with you today."

_Yeah, yeah…_ Eve thought to herself. She didn't really like people like that. It was such a ham handed way to give an introduction, but as usual, Train just smiled and went with it.

"Yeah. This is Eve. She's been a friend of mine for a long time, but only recently did I truly discover how amazing she really is…" Train said with a dreamy sort of stare. Eve would have to remember to slap him later. But, she couldn't deny that the crowd was eating it up, so maybe it was a good thing. The two smiled politely to the huge applause that erupted after what Train had said, and then as if he needed to do anymore, Train kissed Eve in front of everyone, causing Eve to blush heavily. She wouldn't kill him in front of everyone. Too many witnesses. She'd definitely do it once they got back to the hotel, though. The applause became even louder after Train did that. She had to admit that he was a pretty good performer, despite his distaste for Shaolee, Number X of the Chronos numbers.

Soon enough, it seemed, the show was over, and Train swept Eve off her feet and carried her off the stage bridal style. Oh, how she was going to get him later. It was kind of nice to have this kind of attention from him, though. Okay, maybe she wouldn't kill him. After all, she had really started to like him, and even though she had been part of the adventures that Train was talking about in his books, she enjoyed them immensely. Partly because he had written them, and partly because they were extremely well written, despite his apparent idiocy. Of course, he couldn't be as big an idiot as he seemed. After all, idiots didn't become Chronos numbers at the age of 18. But, it seemed as though one adventure had ended, and yet, many more were sure to come. For the moment, she sighed in contentment, and relaxed her body in Train's embrace.

**The End**


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